I'iH !V, ■..';::■■-\■■■■
Matt
III
s
I
THE
POWER OF THE SOUL
OVER THE BODY,
CONSIDERED
[N RELATION TO HEALTH AND MORALS
GEORGE MOOrI M.D.,
MEMBEK OF THE KOYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, LONDON,
ETC., ETC.
'Thou hast a noble guest, 0 flesh!'"'
St. $afnard..
(Tn*-
X.
NEW VY O RKj\7,
HARPER & brothers, publishers,
FRANKLIN SQUARE
1859.
p;/>.x /Jo .72 $y >*» v
PREFACE.
This sketch of the influence of the mind on
the body was commenced and continued with
the feeling that the soul is the true object of af-
fection, and that all its interests are essentially
religious. The principal part of the volume
was written, several years since, during the
unwelcome but valuable leisure of disease, for
the purpose of being addressed to a few young
men who appeared to be deeply impressed with
the nature and importance of the subject. On
a reperusal of the manuscript, the recollection
of this encouragement induced a hope that the
publication might find an apology in the ap-
proval of reflecting readers, especially as at
this time the public mind is unusually roused to
the observation of mental influences in the pro-
duction of remarkable phenomena under mes-
merism and disease. The views exhibited in
these pages having been consolatory and in-
structive to himself, the author trusts will be
deemed at least a good reason for his endeavor
thus to obtain the attention of others. A corre-
IV
r-REKACE.
sponding volume, concerning Bodily Tempera-
ment. Will, and Habit, was intended to have
accompanied this ; but it may more suitably
follow, should public favor in any degree en-
courage the present adventure.
As said good old " lohn Caius, Docteur in
Phisicke," a.d. 1552, " man beying borne not for
his owne vse and comoditie alone, but also for
the commo benefite of many (as reason wil and
al good authores write), he whiche in this world
is worthy to lyue, ought al ways to haue his
hole minde and intente geuen to profite others.
Which thynge to shewe in effecte in my self, al-
though by fortune some waies I haue been letted,
yet by that whiGhe fortune cannot debarre, some
waies again I haue declared^
Hastings, March 11,1845.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
CHAPTER PAGE
Introduction............7
I The Adaptation of the Body to the Soul . . . 17 '
II. The Organs of Sense the Instruments of the
Mind.............25 '
III. The Mind is not the Result of Sensation ... 29
IV. The Value of the Senses, and Observations on
their Use............37 '
V. Connection of the Mind with the Brain, etc. . 51 «
VI. Evils of Popular Phrenology.......59 I
VII. Nature of the Nervous System, and its Obedi-
ence to the Will . '.........G6
VIII. The Power of Attention, and its Connection
with Sleep ...........73 '
IX. The State of the Will in Dreaming . . . . 81 /
X. Illustrations of the Power of the Mind in Dream-
ing, Somnambulism, etc........85
XI. The State of the Attention modifies Sensation . 97 /
XII. The Faculty of Abstraction.......103
XIII. The Difference between Absence and Abstrac-
tion of Mind, and their Relations to the State
of the Will in Connection with the Body . 109
XIV. The Action of the Mind on the Nervous Organ-
ization in Memory, etc........116^
XV. The Connection of Memory with the Habit and
Condition of the Brain, and the Use of the
Body.............128
XVI. The Influence of Mental Habit on the Charac-
ter of the Memory.........134
XVII. The Connection of Memory with Double Con-
sciousness ............143
XVIII. Further Facts and Observations in Proof of the
Immaterial Nature of Memory.....152
VI CONTENTS.
PART II.
CHAPTER PAOI
I. The Positive Action of the Mind on the Body, as-
serted and exemplified in the effects of excessive
Attention.............163
II Injudicious Education.........170
III. Peculiar Effects of inordinate Mental Determina-
tion ................180
yiV. The Effects of undue Attention to one's own Body 189
V. Misemployment of the Mind.......199
VI. Chagrin and Suicide..........208
I VII. Irritable Brain, Insanity, etc........214
y VIII. A general view of the Effects of the Passions on
Health.............224
IX- Sympathy.............241
X. Solitude .....'.........250
XI. The Government of the Passions......258
XII. The highest Triumph of the Soul.—Conclusion . 263
The term soul has been preferred to stand in the
title of this volume, because in common discourse
it is employed to signify an individual intelligent
being, which actuates the body, and is popularly
supposed to be capable of an active existence in-
dependent of physical connection. It is meant
to designate that which is conscious of acting,
thinking, and wilhng. To avoid confusion, the K
words soul, mind, and spirit, will be employed as
synonymous; because to distinguish their proper
shades of meaning would require a metaphysical
nicety incompatible with the purpose of this work.
We perceive the diversified operations of the think-
ing principle, and call it by different names, accord-
ing to its different manifestations; but the unity
of its nature, like that of God himself, is an an-
nounced or a revealed truth, to be received by
faith, because our faculties will not allow us yet to
comprehend an existence without parts. In using
Jmu. -
i
INTRODUCTION.
the senses, we speak of the soul under the term
Sense; when inferring truth from truth, wo call it
Understanding; when fancying the future, Imagi-
nation ; when reviewing the past, Memory; when
choosing or refusing, Will. Yet all our faculties
are but properties of one being, and we feel our
identity amid all the diversity of our thoughts and
purposes.
We can not explain the mode any more than the
nature of that which thinks; and mere endeavors
to define what we can not demonstrate neither im-
prove our faculties nor advance our knowledge.
An elaborate disquisition on mind and matter
would therefore be a useless demand on patience;
and since we can not discover any thing concern-
ing either but in their operations on each other, if
we would learn their relative importance, we must
study their reciprocal influence.
Some philosophers, perhaps forgetful that mind
is manifested by its own consciousness, have assert-
ed that intelligence is but a result of material con-
stitution, and, therefore, that the decay or destruc-
tion of the physical organization, with which it is
at present connected, necessarily involves also the
everlasting dissolution of the thinking principle.
Whether true or false, this must be a miserable
conclusion ; for it implies that our Creator, if there
be one, has formed his sentient and intelligent creat-
ure, man, for no other purpose than to witness,
fir a short time, his own paradoxical existence, to
INTRODUCTION. 9
contrast his desires with his destiny, to shrink away
in terror from the sight and the thought of all that
is glorious, great, good, or enduring, and to shun
all notion of Deity, lest what is thus presented to
his apprehension, should excite aspiring wishes,
and build up lofty hopes, only that their destruction
may be the more certain and the more extensive.
The wondrous speculum, which restless research
inspires man with ingenuity to fabricate, reflects
the dim glimmerings of infinite worlds, into which
he would direct his inquiring ken, only to kindle
and expand, and then becloud his reason; for to
follow its promptings were merely madness, and
wisdom would be impossible; even to know would
be vanity and folly, unless we knew that existence
might be equal to our felt capacity of enjoying it.
Were a man sure that he could not possibly pos-
sess a better than this earthly life, to look off from
this dull cold spot would only be to aggravate his
doom. The glory of distant worlds would fall like
a blight upon his being, for it will suggest possibil-
ities of intelligence and delight forever beyond his
reach.
A creeping thing prepares for its perfection, and
at length bursts from its silken tomb with newly-
developed form, appetites, and nature. Like a
" winged flower," with brilliant and delicate pin-
ions, and rich in gems, it gladly flutters with the
light, and sips nectar from the hand of God.
The grub may tend to be a butterfly, but why
10
INTRODUCTION.
should the worm just peeping from its clod aspire
to any thing beyond the clay on which it is des-
tined to crawl and rot? And why should man
look higher ? Why 1 His spirit will not crawl; it
travels along with the light into infinite space, and
calculates on a fife and a capacity commensurate
with its desires. He is impelled by a belief, which
seems essential to his rational existence, that this
beautiful world is not altogether a delusive show;
for he can not think that the wondrous facts of cre-
ation teach him to look for the end of truth only
in death; but he feels that, in proportion as his in-
tellect expands and expatiates in knowledge, does
it aspire to immortality, and when most intimate
with the realities of time, his reason finds stability,
satisfaction, and rest, only in communion with the
Eternal.
All who have looked below the surface of things,
must account that science despicable, and that phi-
losophy pitifully meager, which afford no higher ob-
ject of pursuit than a little sensuality; no brighter
prospect than a phantom life, no better end than
an endless death.
If believers in the material system of faith (it de-
mands great faith, such as it is), indeed, allow that
there is existence beyond things, if they do allow a
God, it certainly must be a god of their own. He
can not have revealed himself to the world, for
there is not any reasonable pretense to a revelation
but in the Bible; and therefore those who believe,
INTRODUCTION.
11
in contradiction to that Book, the doctrine which
teaches that the soul dies with the body, must have
substituted their own opinions for the declarations
of that venerable authority, and instead of worship-
ing Jehovah, or in any measure obeying his laws,
they must have constituted themselves their own
deity, and made their own glory and convenience
the end of all their thoughts, and all their actions.
Unhappy men ! like fallen spirits, their pride sepa-
rates them both from divine and human sympa
thy,—they can not believe that omnipotence is love,
and therefore they can not adore.
But there are those who tell us they have tasted
a better philosophy, and they teach us to regard
it as "a perpetual feast of nectared sweets," of
which the more we partake the more we enjoy,
and indeed the effect of its fullest enjoyment is
nothing short of actual participation in Divine
nature. This philosophy regards man as formed
to be instructed by acquaintance with good and
evil in this world, that the will may be disciplined
under moral and physical law, and having knowl-
edge imparted, and motives presented to the soul,
it may be the better qualified for introduction to an
enlarged existence.
It is true, that in this state all intelligence that
is not instinctive or intuitive is received only through
the body, but yet our reason possesses perceptions
of truth which sensation could never have convey-
ed, and all our reflections concerning our nature
12 INTRODUCTION.
terminate in the conclusion which revelation war-
rants,—that the soul dies not. Even the lower
creatures, down to creeping things, are endowed
with knowledge, which they acquire not by the use
of their senses. No sooner do they burst from their
" procreant cradle" than, instinct with skill, they
seek their happiness in the right path, as if directly
illuminated by divine guidance. Why then should
man be without this guidance in his instinctive en-
deavors after his proper enjoyment and in the pos-
session of permanent blessedness 1 There is a
light which, in the hope, lightens every man that
cOmeth into the world.
In pursuing our theme it behooves us, who pro
fess to be Christians, not to disregard the source
from whence we derive our religion, but as far as
we can, to conduct our inquiries as if we really felt
the force of those truths which we profess to believe.
Believers in revelation are not only preserved from
the misery of the skeptic, but excited to larger in-
quiries than he. The man of faith must be a think-
ing man, for he infers from facts, and is directed
as well as encouraged in his researches after every
kind of truth; since the book that secures his faith
often supplies the subject, and also indicates the
proper direction of rational study. Here we learn
our origin and our end; but without it mankind
would have continued unable to discover either
why or whence they had their being. The Bible
indeed finds the same faults with this world that
INTRODUCTION.
13
common sense does,—sin, pain and death are in
it; but then in the Bible only do we discover a
promise of a perfect remedy for evil in the re-ad-
justment of moral and material elements by God
in man.
The sublimest and most interesting thoughts ex-
pressed in language are contained in the Genesis
given by Moses. In this we find that the produc-
tion of man was the finishing-stroke to creation—
the Creator's especial thought, the final end of the
six days' work. This earth appears to have been
furnished for him by the creative word which said,
"let fight be," and fight was. Man was then
brought into being to behold His glory who formed
our nature expressly in correspondence with De-
ity : " in the image of God created he him."* And
as the dust was fashioned by the immediate touch
of Jehovah's finger, the human structure took the
impress of Divinity. That this form of earthly
mold and heavenly meaning might not remain
like the temple without its indwelling glory, God
breathed within man's body the abiding spirit of
various lives, and thus also illumined him with the
moral reflection of the divine character. The
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and "man became a living soul." In these
* We have divine authority for understanding this expression
to denote the moral excellence and dominion with which man was
endowed.—Eph. iv. 24: Col. iii. 10.
B
14 INTRODUCTION.
words we have a distinct announcement that life
and mind did not manifest themselves as the or-
ganization of its structure proceeded, but that vital-
ity and intelligence were superadded, in connection
with a separate existence directly imparted from
Jehovah, and therefore in immediate relation with
Him.
Thus man walked forth in his paradise at once
the representative and the worshiper of Love, and
Light, and Power, connecting the visible with the
invisible worlds in his own person, and by the
union of spirit with matter, feebleness with perfec-
tion, exhibiting the glorious mystery of creation,—
Omnipotence revealed in contradictions reconciled.
Man is the grand contradiction—a compound of
paradoxes ; for he is constituted not only of oppo-
sites, but of contraries. In studying ourselves,
therefore, we become intimate with the greatest
difficulties and the greatest interests.
As before observed, the co-existence of mind
with matter in one being is quite beyond our com-
prehension, but not beyond our knowledge, for we
experience the fact. The reason of our compound
constitution is, simply, that the Great Spirit has
willed our adaptation to a physical world, from
whence we are to derive intelligence and enjoy-
ment. We find, however, that our minds are
governed by laws that have nothing to do with
material organization; for our sense of right and
wrong, truth and falsehood, virtue and vice, has
INTRODUCTION.
15
no relation to bodily structure, but as the vehicle
and instrument of mind. We conceive ideas, com-
bine reason, not according to atomic affinities, but
to spiritual associations. We love, hope, fear, if
not irrespective of external impressions, at least
without their continuance. Above all, we retain
amid the changes of our bodies and the shifting
variety of decay around us, a distinct consciousness
of our own identity, and an intuitive conviction,
as far as reason is awakened, that we hold our
faculties and endowments, not from the fortuitous
action of nature, as a blind power, but from the
purpose of God as an informing spirit, in whom
we live, and move, and have our being forever.
Whatever will tend to confirm our confidence in
this position will add to our happiness; and it is
hoped that the examination of facts which illustrate
our nature will constrain us, as with the force of
a rational necessity, practically to acknowledge oui
dependence, while it encourages our reliance on
Him who remembers we are dust and breathes on
us his spirit. The highest thought is of eternal
Being. All real adoration is the feeling of a life
Deyond sense, and which organization can not con-
tain nor manifest, much less produce. It is the
proceeding spirit acknowledging in love the parent
spirit; it is the communion of the Father and the
Son ; an entrance into the glory which was before
the world. From everlasting to everlasting, thou
art, O Infinite! The human mind would sink
16 INTRODUCTION.
crushed by the burden of the vast thought if thou
didst not in humanity sustain thy creature. Enable
us, O God, to reflect upon thine image in reverence,
and to honor thy majesty as revealed in the fear-
fully wondrous frame and in the moral excellence
of man.
Every sentient creature is characterized by its.
dispositions. The provision made for its enjoy-
ment, and also the peculiarities of its physical en-
dowment, must be in keeping with its will. If,
then, we would ascertain the true dignity and des-
tiny of man, we must study the scope and power
of that principle in him, and how it is influenced;
for, in fact, the mind or soul is thus especially mani-
fested in the body. We may conveniently regard
the power of the soul in the following respects :—
1st. As manifested in the senses, in attention,
and in memory.
2dly. In the influence of mental determina-
tion and emotion over the vital functions of the
body.
THE POWER
OF
THE SOUL OVER THE BODY,
PART I.
THE SOUL, AS MANIFESTED IN THE USE OF THE SENSES,
IN ATTENTION AND IN MEMORY.
CHAPTER I.
THE ADAPTATION OF THE BODY TO THE SOUL.
Throughout that part of creation within our
scope, we behold evidences of infinite wisdom; and
whenever effects are traced to causes, and forma-
tion is considered in respect to its design, we dis-
cover a perfect adaptation of means to ends—the
apparatus being exactly suited to its purpose, with
out defect, without redundancy.
When surveying any living creature, we natu-
rally inquire, why it is provided with such and
such peculiarities of organization. In answer to
the inquiry we learn that every peculiarity of for-
mation is adapted to some instinct of the creature,
or accommodates it the better to the circumstances
in which the Creator has placed it. Monstrosities
o
18
THE adaptation of
rarely happen, and only confirm the rule; for they
too occur according to certain laws, which prove
still more clearly than could be proved without
them, to our intellect at least, that the will, which
designs, and the power which executes, calculated
on the disorder that created will produces, and set
bounds to its interference which can not be passed
Wre can not, with propriety, say that one com-
plete animal is nobler than another, because of any
prominence of particular organs as compared with
its whole body; nor is one creature to be called
monstrous or ugly, in comparison with another,
for each is exactly fitted to its place in the grand
scale of existence, and therefore all are alike beau-
tiful, as exhibiting the wonderful wisdom and be-
neficence of God. But creation is graduated, and
every creature has its proper place. The totality
of an animal's framework indicates its position on
the scale of being. If we measure man according
to this standard, his superiority is at once evident
Not that his body is distinguished by any marked
excellence in those qualities which empower brutes,
but by the symmetrical accordance of all its parts
for superior purposes, under the direction of a will
that can not truly sympathize with lower natures.
" Os homini sublime dedit, ccelumque tueri,
Jussit et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus."
This is a fine heathen sentiment, hut not quite
true; for the eye of man was intended to search
the earth as well as the heavens, and to behold
Omnipotence in every part of the universal temple.
The face is indeed the index of thought and sen-
timent, the medium through which mind most
THE BODY TO THE SOUL. 19
vividly communicates with mind, but yet the whole
body acts together in the full expression of feel-
ing :—
" Totamque infusa per artus,
Mens agitat molem."
Let us imagine a human figure as if now stand-
ing before us, like the Apollo of the intellectual
Greeks when he gazed on the smitten Python.
We seem to see in this statue the visible idea or
image of the man who aspired to be a god. At
length he stands triumphant over the temptation
and the tempter, content in the consciousness of
a renovated and perfect humanity. Passion and
intellect are blended in calm unison; knowledge
and affection are at peace; the attributes of feel-
ing, thought and action, are combined in one atti-
tude, expressive of the delicate might of a living
spirit. The mind reigns in that body. The in-
carnate intelligence manifestly controls matter by
his will, and appears as if conscious of being always
resisted, yet never vanquished ; but, inspired by
the apprehension of his right, as vicegerent of Al-
mightiness, he sujjdues resistance and surmounts
difficulties by perseverance in the use of strength,
that continually and spontaneously increases with
every opposition to his purpose. Such is man,
when sustained by the divinity which stirs within
him ; the only creature on which the Creator has
shadowed divine perfections, and therefore he is to
be honored even in his ruin; for when his affections
and faculties are restored, as they may be, to divine
sympathy, he shall again stand upright, the con-
queror of the mighty serpent.
•20
THE ADAPTATION OF
We have looked upon man in his highest aspect,
" God-like, erect, with native honor clad,
In naked majesty."
But even if we regard him in his most uncultivated
condition, where the intellect is left to the freedom
of the elements, and educated only by the forces
of corporeal necessity, we yet shall see much indi-
cation of his dignity.
The wild barbarian awakes to action, and evciy
movement speaks of thought. He is evidently in-
fluenced by a world within him, where reflection
and anticipation present incessant business for his
spirit, and he will not live in the solitude of his
own perceptions, but he seeks the higher pleasures
of sociality and fellowship. His ideal existence is
as actual as that of his body, and crowded with
emotions. Memory and imagination people a
world of their own, in the busy scenes of which he
dwells more thoroughly and intimately than in that
which is present to his outward senses. And he
reveals his inner life by living language. He talks
of what he feels, not only in words but also in the
lineaments of his face, and while he speaks he
stretches out his hand toward some object which
may illustrate his words, or interest his companion,
and thus by the very act of pointing, at once de-
clares himself superior in endowment to every
earthly creature, except his fellow-man; for no
other holds rational discourse, or even possesses
that simple adjunct to human intelligence, the
power of distinctly and designedly pointing, to
direct the attention of another.
We say then that the existence of a resident and
THE BODY TO THE SOUL.
21
superintending mind, a thinking principle, an intel-
ligent spirit operating upon the body, in it, not of
it, might be inferred from the external form alone;
and the manner of every movement and expression
of that form proves how perfectly it was adapted
for the use of a guiding and dominant spirit, per-
vading, informing, and employing it.
As the habits of certain animals have been cor-
tectly inferred from the examination of detached
portions of their structure, so from almost any part
of man's body we may at once discover that it was
constructed for the accommodation and delight of
an intellectual being. Even those disadvantages,
in regard to the coarser physical qualities which
lower animals possess, act but as stimuli to the
human faculties, which supply all deficiencies, and
confer the best accommodation. In fact, the excel-
lence of man consists in the delicate adaptation of
his structure, for without this the reasoning prin-
ciple would be out of place. He is the most deli-
cate creature on the earth, but yet he is not formed
to hide himself. He must indeed be intrusted at
first to the tenderest care of affection, to be nurtured
into strength enough to endure the action of the
elements amid which he is destined to dwell, yet
he alone comes forth from his feeble infancy, erect,
the observed, and the observer, with a mind to
plan, and a liand to execute. The instrument is
adapted to the agent—" Non enim manus ipsa,
homines artes docuerunt, sed ratio:'* But if man's
body had been constituted on any inferior model,
art and science could have had no outward exist-
► Galen.
22
THE ADAPTATION OF
ence, and reason must have been imprisoned, in
brute form. Supposing human knowledge then
possible, man could only have been manifest as a
subtil beast. " It is mind that makes the body
rich," but the soul needs a corresponding body,
and God had wedded them together, in perfect
suitability to their present business and abode.
How inconceivably exact must be the adapta-
tion of the body to the purposes of the mind!
The organs of sense and of action so instantane-
ously and perfectly obey the demands of the will
that in many of our most complicated and ordinary
movements we are unconscious of having willed
to employ the body, but it seems to have consented
to anticipated intention in such a manner that we
feel identified with it. So complete is the accord-
ancy and assent between a healthy body and a
sensual mind that some persons scarcely acquire a
thought that takes them out of the body; they live
only in its sensations. The machine which they
actuate is confounded with themselves, because it
so admirably obeys their wills that they conceive
no other enjoyment, and reach not so far as an
idea of moral or spiritual excellence when habitu-
ated to the pleasures of sense.
While the system is in the highest state of health,
that is, when best adapted for use, so great is the
enjoyment of this perfect fitness that we can scarce-
ly avoid putting our limbs into action, or as we
say exerting ourselves, hence dancing becomes the
natural expression of healthy gladness, for on these
vigorous occasions we can not meditate, but our
life and thought are altogether bent on muscular
THE BODY TO THE SOUL.
23
activity, or the use of the body irrespective of re-
flection. This happy activity is beautifully exem-
plified in healthy children, whose business appears
to be merely to enjoy action and unmeaning pas-
time, and to exercise the senses simply for the
pleasure thus afforded.
But how exquisitely the spirit becomes visible in
every attitude and every feature of happy children !
We read their thoughts and feelings as perfectly as
if their souls were our own. And were our minds
and bodies attuned by love, we should find our-
selves impelled by sympathy to join their sport.
Like musical instruments of marvelous construc-
tion, we are so strong that the air which causes vi-
bration seems to breathe but in the music, and one
string is no sooner struck than all awake in harmo-
ny. And we are attuned to each other so perfect-
ly, that under similar circumstances of health, being
free from the dull pressure of care, all humanity
will perhaps respond to one heart.
But the science and execution of music affords
us still better illustration. How nice a structure
must be called into play when a skillful pianist, by
aid of an additional instrument fitted to his conve-
nience, executes an intricate piece of music, not only
in a wonderfully rapid succession of mechanical
movements, but also in a manner fully to express
the very feelings of his soul! But how much more
forcibly is the same power manifested in the human
voice ! By it the spirit speaks not only an infinite
variety of articulated sounds, but more marvelously
still by the modulated language of tones, so as to ex-
cite into ecstacy or agony every sympathy within us.
24 ADAPTATION of THE BODY to THE SOUL.
What is it that so skillfully touches this instru-
ment 1 What is it that enjoys as well as actuates,
receives as well as communicates, through this in-
scrutable organization 1 It is, as we have said, the
soul or spirit, without which this body were more
unmeaning than a statue, and only fit, as it would
tend, to decay. It is the soul which animates the
features and causes them to present a living picture
of each passion, so that the inmost agitations of the
heart become visible in a moment, and the wish
that would seek concealment betrays its presence
and its power, in the vivid eye, while the blood kin-
dles into crimson with a thought that burns along
the brow. It is this which diffuses a sweet sereni-
ty and rest upon the visage, when our feelings are
tranquilized, and our thoughts abide with heaven,
like ocean in a calm, reflecting the peaceful glories
of the cloudless skies. This indwelling spirit of
power blends our features into unison and harmony,
and awakes " the music breathing from the face,"
when in association with those we love, and heart
answering to heart, we live in sympathy, while
memory and hope repose alike in 6miles upon the
bosom of enjoyment. It is a flame from heaven
purer than Promethean fire, that vivifies and ener-
gizes the breathing form. It is an immaterial es-
sence, a being, that quickens matter and imparls
life, sensation, motion, to the intricate framework
of our bodies; which wills when we act, attends
when we perceive, looks into the past when we re-
flect, and not content with the present, shoots with
all its aims and all its hopes into the futurity that
is forever dawning upon it.
CHAPTER II.
THE ORGANS OF SENSE ARE THE INSTRUMENTS OF
THE MIND.
Probably none but uncreated mind can act with-
out being acted on, at least facts appear to demon-
strate that the human spirit has no originating
power, but is moved only as it is impressed by cir-
cumstances and extraneous influences. Hence the
necessity of its being supplied with instruments and
senses, organized in keeping with the sphere which
it inhabits, in order that its capacity for action might
be elicited and manifested by agents appropriate to
its innate functions and endowments.
We are accustomed to say the eye sees, the ear
hears, the finger feels, and so forth; but such lan-
guage is incorrect, and only admissible because we
are accustomed to the error, and our expressions
are necessarily accommodated to ignorance, or are
not equal to our knowledge. The eye itself no
more sees than the telescope which we hold before
it to assist our vision. The ear hears not any more
than the trumpet of tin, which the deaf man directs
toward the speaker to convey the sound of his voice,
and so with regard to all the organs of sense. They
are but instruments which become the media of in-
telligence to the absolute mind, which uses them,
whenever that mind is inclined or obliged to em-
C
26 THE ORGANS OF SENSE
ploy them. Or, perhaps, they might be more cor-
rectly represented as the seats and proper places
of impressions, because of their exact adaptation
to external influences. They bear such relations to
the condition of the materials which surround us,
as, in the healthy state of their functions, always
to present true and real intimations of circum-
stances within the range of their faculty or forma-
tion.
The slightest examination of the organs of sense
will, however, convince an observer that they are
constructed merely as instruments. What is the
eye but a most perfect optical contrivance 1 It is
composed of the best materials, arranged in the
best manner, for the purpose of rendering illumi-
nated objects not only visible, but tangible, for
sight can be demonstrated to be a finer sort of feel-
ing, the colors which represent distance and shape
being brought in contact with the nerve, and with
that which perceives in the nerve. The cornea ia
a most perfect convex glass, set distinctly in its
proper place and proper manner, with the same
design, but with far greater precision than the
optician sets his crystal to aid the sight. The vari-
ous translucent membranes, the lens, the humors of
different densities, and even the blood, abruptly
made transparent in its passage, and much beside,
too minute to be now mentioned, conspire to trans-
mit and duly refract, and regulate the rays of light,
so that they may fall upon the exact point, and
there present to the observant spirit a perfect
picture of the majestic, the beautiful, the glorious;
and bring into our being those impressions which
ARE THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE MIND. 2/
preserve our interest and sympathy with universal
nature. No mechanism invented by man was ever
so well contrived or so well placed, or could move
so precisely as required under the action of its
pulleys. No servant was ever so obedient; for,
without a conscious effort of the will, without a com-
mand, and as if instinct with the mind that employs
it, this exquisite apparatus, which is both a camera-
obscura and a telescope, instantaneously takes the
direction of a desire, and accommodates itself to
the range of distance and the degree of light.
And the ear is a complete acoustic instrument,
with its exterior trumpet to collect sounds, and its
vibrating tympanum, and its chamber and winding
passages, and its dense fluids, so well calculated to
propagate and modify vibrations, and its minute
and sensitive muscles, to act as cords to brace the
drum, just as required, and to move the jointed
piston, which regulates the water in its canals, ac-
cording to circumstances, and the whole built up
within a stone-like structure, which prevents the
sound from being wasted. There is much of
wisdom in the arrangement of this wonderful living
instrument, as indeed in others also, the meaning
of which human sagacity can not discover; but this
much however can always be ascertained, the pur-
pose is to bring the mind into contact with that
which it would know.
The senses moreover correspond together, and
thus enable the mind to correct the impressions of
one by those of the others, in such a manner as, by
their united operation to obtain full and accurate
intelligence concerning the surrounding world.
28 THE ORGANS OF SENSE
The well-known case which the philosophic
Cheselden has related affords a decisive experi-
ment, agreeing as it does with many others, in proof
that the information derived from the sense of sight
requires to be corrected by information from dif-
ferent sources, but that when the habit of seeing is
established under this correction, vision continues
to suggest the true relations of objects to each
other.
A young gentleman, who had no remembrance
of ever having seen, was couched and received his
sight; but when he first saw he could not judge of
distances, but thought all visible objects touched his
eye, as what he felt touched his skin. He expected
that pictures would feel like what they represented,
and was amazed when he found those parts which
by light and shadow appeared round and uneven,
felt flat like the rest, and asked which was the lying
sense, feeling or sight. When shown a miniature
of his father, he acknowledged the likeness, but
desired to know how it could be that so large a
face could be expressed in so small a compass,
saying it seemed as impossible to him as to put a
bushel into a pint. The things he first saw he
thought extremely large, and upon seeing larger
things, those first seen he conceived less, not being
able to imagine any lines beyond the bounds he
beheld. He could not conceive that the house
could look larger than the room he was in. He
said every new object was a new delight. On first
beholding a large prospect his pleasure was beyond
expression, and he called it a new kind of seeing.
These details prove, that sight does not oiigi-
ARE THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE MIND. 29
nally inform us respecting the real distance or
magnitude of objects, but that we learn these
things from the experience and help of our other
senses ; therefore the mind exercises an independ-
ent judgment in comparing their impressions, a
power which the senses themselves could never
have conferred.
CHAPTER III.
THE MIND IS NOT THE RESULT OF SENSATION.
There is a disposition to exercise the senses
from the enjoyment afforded by the act; but this
disposition of course resides, not in the organs, but
in the mind, being the result of our mental consti-
tution, in connection with nerves through which
we discover suitable objects. The mind is excited
by whatever is appropriate to it, and the senses
are stimulated in sympathy with the mind, be-
cause they are its organs, the means of action
and enjoyment. Whatever pleases the mind the
senses seek: the eye, light; the ear, modulated
sound ; the smell, fragrance; the taste, flavor;
the touch, degrees of pressure; and the muscles
possess an agreeable sense of their own, arising
probSbly from their power of adjusting the body
for the accommodation of the mind, in the exercise
of the senses generally.
What is meant by this adjustment will appear
when we reflect on the machinery which is con-
30
THE MIND IS NOT
sentaneously set in motion in the act of using
either of the senses, but more especially, perhaps,
sight and touch. It is not enough that the sensa-
tion of a visible object should be present in the
eye ; in order to look so as to examine an object,
it is also necessary that the will be exerted. The
first sensation of an object only serves as a stimu-
lus to the appetite of the mind, to rouse its atten-
tion, and excite the will, which, acting on the
muscles, prepares the eye for further scrutiny, and
at the same time places all the body in keeping
with the state and desire of the mind, so that we
can generally see from the attitude of a person
how his eye is engaged.
The muscular consent between the eye and the
rest of the body, particularly the hand, is well shown
in fencing, where every movement is guided, not
by looking to see how the weapon should be di-
rected, but by fixing your eye on your antagonist's
eye : his intention there expressed, and acting as it
were through your own eye on your nervous sys-
tem, causes an instantaneous and instinctive ad-
justment of your body accordingly. The same
thing is exhibited, also, in the precision with which
the savage hunter learns to direct his arrow, and
the politer sportsman to point his gun.
Here let us inquire—does organization produce
the consciousness of self ] No; for we feel or-
ganization to be distinct from ourselves. • The
child just beginning to use its senses never con-
founds the objects of sense with itself, and its own
body is but one of these objects. The individual
soul, which, by experience and suitable organs,
THE RESULT OF SENSATION. 31
manifests intellect or mind, not only perceives the
sensations, and interprets them according to past
experience, but it has an influence in modifying
their impressions, and intensifying their effects ac-
cording to certain laws which regulate its con-
nection with the senses.
Mind has the power of distinguishing sensations,
and of causing one sense to be employed in pref-
erence to another, and, to a certain extent, of
correcting the impressions made on them all. The
brain, connecting the senses together, enables the
mind to employ them in relation to each other,
and to compare sensation with sensation as re-
gards time, space, and degree of force; so that
whatever interrupts or disturbs the regular func-
tion of this connecting medium of all 6ense, the
brain, necessarily causes the mind to perceive and
to compare, in a disordered manner, as in de-
lirium, insanity, and idiotism, or else the brain
becomes so diseased that it altogether ceases to
convey impressions from without, and thus per-
chance allows the mind to proceed in its activity
with the consciousness of past ideas, which it con-
tinues to combine, according to the laws of its
being, perhaps irrespective of physical association.
However necessary the intelligence derived from
the senses may be, to the development of mental
capacity in this state of existence, it is yet evident
that mind is not the result of sensation, nor, as to
the origin of its peculiar faculties, at all dependent
on the power of the senses; for in order to use
them aright, and to obtain correct impressions
through them, there must exist, inherently and
32
THE MIND IS NOT
antecedently, an ability in the mind or thinking
principle, to attend and to compare. What is
experience but the amount of impressions received
by the mind 1 It contributes nothing to the mental
improvement, but as the mind possesses the power
of judging—a power which no experience can
itself confer, any more than the objects presented
can produce the will that chooses between them.
It is the prerogative of the thinking soul to learn
by observation; that is, to employ the senses and
to judge by analogy. But this implies that a reas-
oning being is attending as soon as the senses are
brought into exercise, and that it is prepared to
work as soon as it finds materials to work with.
Facts prove the truth of this position. According
to the nature of the mind, residing in any body—
supposing, of course, the body in health and fitted
for it—so will be the exhibition of that mind. Its
experience can never alter its nature. The edu-
cation of the senses can never create a new mind.
A brute can acquire no notion of moral truth by
training, but a human soul is always rational, and
from its earliest manifestation in the body, always
reasons or infers correctly, according to the extent
of its knowledge. " The child is father of the
man." Though the senses which it uses are no
better than a brute's, how vastly superior the re-
sult of their employment! The human being sees
intuitively beyond sense, and venerates the un-
known which the known indicates; and while ex-
perience administers to hope, chooses not merely ac-
cording to appetite, but to conviction, for what he
believes determines his actions; and as his reason
THE RESULT OF SENSATION. 33
consents to truth, without demanding any other de-
monstration than its fitness, so he lives in the enjoy-
ment of what he expects as well as in what he real-
izes.
We must live by faith. We must trust, though
we know that our senses often deceive us; we
must still rely, for our perceptions of sensible ob-
jects depend on them. Moreover, we naturally
believe what can not be demonstrated to our senses,
for reason and conscience rest on convictions de-
rived from a higher source.
There is a correspondence or consent between
the mind and nerves of sensation. The nerves
being disordered, false impressions are received.
Experience may correct them; but it often happens
that she is incompetent, or the defect may have
been congenital; then the mind manifests itself in a
defective manner, and is said to be either idiotic or
insane. The due relation between the senses and
the soul—the link that connects them—is broken, and
the thinking principle continues to act according to
the power of the machinery with which it is asso-
ciated, and according to its innate energy and con-
sciousness. If that part of the nervous system be
diseased in which the impressions of sense combine,
that is, the central brain, then the faculties of atten-
tion and comparison are of course interfered with,
or prevented from acting in proper order, and the
individual so afflicted is insane. This disorder
being removed, the man is restored to his senses;
for the mind itself can not be insane; but it is al-
ways able to act aright with a correct organization,
in- when there is no interference to disturb its func-
3
34 THE MIND IS NOT
tions. How far the mind may be willfully pervert-
ed, and attracted from the truth, it knows and thus
become what may be called morally insane, will
perhaps appear as we proceed.
That the indwelling mind is ever ready to act
in connection with a proper state of nerve, is beau-
tifully exhibited in many cases of recovery from
partial idiotism, in which the faculties and affections
have lain dormant from infancy, till some circum-
stance has altered the state of the brain so as to
bring the mind into its proper relation with the
exterior world, and enable it to manifest the won-
derful endowments of reason by observing and
comparing.
Probably, in cases of idiotism, sensation is con-
fused as well as the reflective faculties. There is
an unsteadiness in the use of the senses, and an in-
determinateness not unlike what we witness in per-
sons who are overpowered by accumulated ner-
vous excitement. It is manifestly a disease of the
nerves, a disorder in the instruments of sensation,
which hinders the mind from attending and cor-
rectly applying them. Hence the soulless counte-
nance, the rude mixture of instincts and passions,
the unmeaning mirth, the transient fear, the gustly
violence. This confusion of faculties and feelings
has sometimes been reduced to order even in he-
reditary idiotism. Light has touched the chaos
into beauty; a slight interference has awakened
the torpid soul; an accident has removed the ob-
struction between the intellect and the world: a
fracture of the skull, a fit of frenzy, a fever has
cured the disease, and the idiot has suddenlv be-
THE RESULT OF SENSATION. 35
come an observant, reasoning man. Beings whose
rudimentary senses seemed incapable of obedience
to will, too restless to allow the soul proper inter-
course with external nature, without moral senti-
ments, without affections—mere instinctive animals,
without associates in creation, yet possessing some
unimaginable happiness in their own confused sen-
sations and propensities—even such imbecile and
worse than brutal enormities have, by the philo-
sophic and Christian philanthropist, been brought
into relation to other beings, redeemed from the
dominion of disgusting appetites, and caused to
seek intelligent enjoyment in loving and pleasing
their instructors and friends. Many such idiots
have been thus rendered visibly and mentally hu-
man by the skillful patience with which M. Voisin,
at the Bicetre, Paris, has employed means to attract
their attention to an associating succession of ob-
jects. If, then, the prison of the spirit has by such
causes been converted into its pleasant palace,
what shall hinder the soul of an idiot from enjoying
at death its emancipation from the impeding body
and its entrance on a commodious abode. Surely
the intelligent principle within them requires only
to be put into proper relation with the world it in-
habits to develop its capacity for knowledge and
happiness.
The same important truth is demonstrated in
those instances in which some deficiency in the
organization of the senses has shut up the soul
from the enjoyment of its appropriate objects, as
in the cases of deaf mutes. And is not ignorance
deaf, blind, dumb, unfeeling 1 And is not educa-
36 THE MIND IS NOT THE RESULT OF SENSATION.
tion the quickener of the soul, enabling it to burst
from the grave, to see, taste, handle the things of
life?
What a delightful and heavenly occupation is it
to set at large an immortal spirit from silent,
speechless, dark imprisonment! How ecstatic tho
interest to watch the gladdening being gradually
liberated from its living tomb, and brought into
rapturous sympathy with other souls! The person
who can peruse Dr. Howe's narrative of Laura
Bridgman's case without emotion, such as a father
feels in regarding his own new-born child, which he
loves because created in his own likeness, is not a
Christian, and has not yet had a glimpse of the vision
which reveals the beauty and value of a human
spirit.
CHAPTER TV.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE VALUE OF THE SENSES, AND
OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR USE.
Laura Bridgman was completely deprived of
sight and hearing at an early period of childhood.
She was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on
the 21st December, 1829. Doctor Howe, her
great benefactor and friend, has published an ex-
ceedingly interesting narrative, from which, or
rather from that part of it given in Dickens's
" American Notes," the following paragraphs are
extracted : "As soon as she could walk she began
to explore the room and the house; she became
familiar with the form, density, weight, and heat of
every article she could lay her hands upon. She
followed her mother, and felt her hands and arms
as she was occupied about the house; and her dis-
position to imitate led her to repeat every thing
herself; she even learned to sew a little, and to
knit. At this time I was so fortunate as to hear
of the child, and immediately hastened to Hanover
to see her. I found her with a well-formed figure,
a strongly-marked nervous-sanguine temperament,
a large and beautifully-shaped head, and the whole
system in healthy action. The parents were easily
induced to consent to her coming to Boston; and
on the 4th October, 1837, they brought her to the
D
38 THE VALUE OF THE SENSES,
institution. After waiting about two weeks, the
attempt was made to give her knowledge of arbi-
trary signs, by which she could interchange thoughts
with others. There was one of two ways to be
adopted : either to go on to build up a language
of signs which she had already commenced her-
self, or to teach her the purely arbitrary language
in common use; that is, to give her a sign for
every individual thing, or to give her a knowl-
edge of letters, by combination of which she might
express her idea of the existence, and the mode
and condition of existence, of any thing. The
former would have been easy, but very ineffectual;
the latter seemed very difficult, but, if accomplish-
ed, very effectual. I determined therefore to try
the latter."
After describing the interesting process by which
he taught her to associate names with things, he
goes on to say, " Hitherto the process had been
mechanical, and the success about as great as
teaching a knowing dog a variety of tricks. The
poor child had sat in mute amazement, and pa-
tiently imitated every thing her teacher did; but
now the truth began to flash upon her: her intel-
lect began to work; she perceived that here was
a way by which she could herself make up a sign
of any thing that was in her own mind, and show
it to another mind, and at once her countenance
lighted up with a human expression; it Was no
longer a dog, or a parrot; it was an immortal
spirit, eagerly seizing upon a new link of union
with other spirits! I could almost fix upon the
moment when the truth first dawned upon her
AND OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR USE. 39
mind, and spread its light to her countenance; I
saw that the great obstacle was overcome, and that
henceforward nothing but patient and persevering,
but plain and straightforward efforts were to be
used."
At the end of the year a report of the case was
made, of which the following is an extract: " It has
been ascertained, beyond the possibility of doubt,
that she can not see a ray of light, can not hear the
least sound, and never exercises her sense of smell,
if she has any. Thus her mind dwells in darkness
and stillness, as profound as that of a closed tomb
at midnight. Of beautiful sights, and sweet sounds,
and pleasant odors she has no conception; never-
theless she is as happy and playful as a bird or a
Iamb ; and the employment of her intellectual facul-
ties, or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her a
vivid pleasure, which is plainly marked in her ex-
pressive features."
Describing the interesting process by which he
taught her to associate names with things, he goes
on to say, " If she have no occupation she evidently
amuses herself by imaginary dialogues, or by re-
calling past impressions; she counts with her fingers,
or spells out names of things which she has recently
learned, in the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes.
In this lonely self-communion she seems to reason,
reflect, and argue. But wonderful as is the rapidity
with which she writes her thoughts upon the air, still
more so is the ease and rapidity with which she reads
the words thus written; grasping their hands in
hers, and following every movement of their
fingers, as letter after letter conveys their meaning
40 THE VALUE OF THE SENSES,
to her mind. It is in this way that she converses
with her blind playmates, and nothing can more
forcibly show the power of mind in forcing matter
to its purpose, than a meeting between them. For
if great skill and talent are necessary for two pan-
tomimes to paint their thoughts and feelings by the
movements of the body and the expression of the
countenance, how much greater the difficulty when
darkness shrouds them both, and the one can hear
no sound! When Laura is walking through a
passage-way, with her hands spread before her, she
knows instantly every one she meets, and passes
them with a sign of recognition; but if it be a girl
of her own age, and especially if it be one of her
favorites, there is instantly a bright smile of rec-
ognition and a twining of arms, a grasping of
hands, and a swift telegraph upon the tiny fingers."
Her mother came to visit her, and the scene of
their meeting was an interesting one. " The
mother stood some time gazing, with overflowing
eyes, upon her unfortunate child, who, all uncon-
scious of her presence, was playing about the room.
Presently Laura ran against her, and at once began
feeling her hands, examining her dress, and trying
to find out if she knew her; but not succeeding in
this, she turned away as from a stranger, and the
poor woman could not conceal the pang she felt
at finding that her beloved child did not know her.
She then gave Laura a string of beads which she
used to wear at home, which were recognized by
the child at once, who with much joy put them
round her neck and sought me eagerly, to say that
she understood the string was from her home. The
AND OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR USE. 41
mother now tried to caress her; but poor Laura
repelled her, preferring to be with her acquaint-
ances. Another article from home was now given
her, and she began to look much interested. After
a while, on her mother taking hold of her again, a
vague idea seemed to flit across Laura's mind that
this could not be a stranger; she therefore felt her
hands very eagerly, while her countenance assum-
ed an expression of intense interest: she became
very pale and then suddenly red; hope seemed
struggling with doubt and anxiety, and never were
contending emotions more strongly painted upon
the human face. At this moment of painful uncer-
tainty, the mother drew her close to her side and
kissed her fondly, when at once the truth flashed
upon the child, and all mistrust and anxiety disap-
peared from her face, as, with an expression of ex-
ceeding joy, she eagerly nestled to the bosom of her
parent, and yielded herself to her fond embrace."
The subsequent parting between them showed
alike the affection, the intelligence, and the reso-
lution of the child. " Laura accompanied her mother
to the door, clinging close to her all the way, until
they arrived at the threshold, where she paused
and felt around to ascertain who was near her.
Perceiving the matron, of whom she is very fond,
she grasped her with one hand, holding on convul-
sively to her mother with the other, and thus she
stood for a moment; then she dropped her mother's
hand, put her handkerchief to her eyes, and turning
round, clung sobbing to the matron, while her
mother departed with emotions as deep as those of
her child."
42 THE VALUE OF THE SENSES,
" She is fond of having other children noticed and
caressed by the teachers and those whom she re-
spects ; but this must not be carried on too far, or
she becomes jealous. She wants to have her share,
which, if not the lion's, is the greater part; and if
she does not get it, she will say, 'My mother will
love me.' Her tendency to imitation is so strong,
that it leads her to actions which must be entirely
incomprehensible to her, and which can give her
no other pleasure than the gratification of an inter-
nal faculty. She has been known to sit for half
an hour holding a book before her sightless eye3,
and moving her lips as she (by the help of her fin-
gers) has observed other people do when reading.
Her social feelings and her affections are very
strong; and when she is sitting at work, or at her
studies by the side of one of her little friends, she
will break off from her task every few moments,
and hug and kiss them with an earnestness and
warmth that is touching to behold. When left
alone, she occupies and, apparently, amuses herself,
and seems quite contented; and so strong seems
to be the natural tendency of thought to put on the
garb of language, that she often soliloquizes in the
finger language, slow and tedious as it is. But it
is only when alone that she is quiet; for if she be-
comes sensible of the presence of any one near her,
she is restless until she can sit close beside them,
hold their hand, and converse with them by signs.
In her intellectual character it is pleasing to ob-
serve an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and a
quick perception of the relations of things. In her
moral character it is beautiful to behold her con-
AND OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR USE. 43
tinual gladness, her keen enjoyment of existence,
her expansive love, her unhesitating confidence,
her sympathy with suffering, her conscientious-
ness, truthfulness, and hopefulness."
So long a quotation may need an apology, es-
pecially as the work from which it has been taken
is of a popular kind and extensively read. A mere
allusion, however, to facts which so powerfully il-
lustrate the subject of this work would not suffice,
and an abridgment would be an injustice. Nei-
ther Dr. Howe nor the reader can desire the cur-
tailment of so triumphant a story, which affords
something very like a demonstration, not only that
the mind depends not entirely on the senses for its
powers, but also that it possesses a distinct exist-
ence, and calls " the body mine, not me." Laura
clearly evinces a moral perception of right and
wrong, which could not have been taught her but
through an innate moral consciousness. Indeed,
moral feeling can not, in any person, have sprung
from mere conventional knowledge, but from a
consenting faculty independent on education, ac-
knowledging the fitness or unfitness, propriety or
impropriety, of any act in relation of mind to mind.
She was fond of having other children noticed and
caressed. She felt the worth of love that delights
in the happiness of associates, and she appreciated
others by the kindness which their conduct evinced
toward herself. She thus acknowledged the true
law of Heaven, written on her heart, not by man's
teaching, but by the finger of God. She could feel
the force of the royal commandment " Do unto oth-
ers as you would they should do to you," and needed
44 THE VALUE OF THE SEN.-T.^,
only to know the truth in order to approve it, be
cause of its felt fitness to her moral nature and her
relationship to other beings. There can be no rea-
son, therefore, that she should be without religious
feelings. The true object of veneration can be
presented to her apprehension, and that not merely
as regards her conceptions of infinite power and
duration, but also as to the moral attributes. At
least she could be made to understand her own
sentiment in a higher sense, and be as ready to
say, " God loves me" as that her mother loves her.
Dr. Fowler, of Salisbury, suggests that she might
be taught the idea of infinity by her idea of esti-
mating distance, and of eternity by time. Certain-
ly imagination would oppose no barrier to the ques-
tions—why should not this measure be prolonged
without end 1 why not this consciousness last for-
ever 1 Here then we have through the same rea-
son, the sublimest conception of a Newton engraft-
ed on the soul of a deaf, blind, speechless girl,
taught by the nature of her own feelings and affec-
tions what materialists dare not claim for any ar-
rangement of matter—Infinite power and Eternal
love!
Several illustrative and striking instances of a
similar kind are recorded. Dugal Stewart read
an interesting paper before the Royal Society, con-
cerning a man fifty years of age, named James
Mitchell. He was without speech, sight, and hear-
ing, but not without affections. His sister could
communicate her wishes to him, and the willful-
ness of his impetuous disposition yielded with the
docility of a little child to the touch of her loving
AND OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR USE. 45
hand. His soul 6eems to have created a diversified
world of its own out of two elements, for by feel-
ing and smell alone he acquired his sublime knowl-
edge. These, his only senses, were spiritually
acute, because he intently observed their intima-
tions, and they furnished him with almost super-
natural intelligence. He evidently inferred from
feeling more than is commonly derived from that
faculty, and experienced exquisite delight, as his
actions expressed, from testing the many tangible
properties of bodies within his reach. His curios-
ity was unbounded, and his invention fertile. He
kneeled at family prayers as if he fully understood
the meaning of the attitude And does it not ne-
cessarily express humility and hope ? Would not
the bending of the knees, and the lifting up of the
hands, and the quiet waiting, have indicated to him
the idea of dependence on some present but yet
intangible power from whom his own being was
derived 1 Our very frame-work, properly employ-
ed, teaches us of God's power and goodness, and
the act of assuming a devout attitude is perhaps
necessarily associated with reverential ideas, as the
result of a natural law of our physiological and
mental existence, as long as our minds are not pos-
sessed by impure ideas. The position of weak-
ness and want is an appeal to Omnipotence, and
we feel it to be so.
This man heard the voice of God in his heart,
more distinctly than many who receive the word
of life and immortality with the outward ear;
and this word was visible to the sight of his soul,
although his eye drank not the light. He shrunk
46 THE VALUE OF THE SENSES,
back in horror from the corpse of his father, for
he recognized death, and never would rest in the
room where the dead body had been laid; but,
some time afterward, he took a stranger into the
apartment, placed his hand a moment on the pil-
low where his father's head had rested, hurried
his companion to the grave, and patted it with his
hand. This could not have been the expression of
his hopelessness, but of his unbroken relationship
to a living father, and of his expectation of life
beyond the tomb.
All the facts concerning the use of the senses
demonstrate, in short, that the soul possesses in-
tuitive endowments which the senses could not
confer; for the faculty of using them is mental,
and must of course precede their use. Our senses
are constituted for this world, and we enjoy it;
our undeveloped spirits are constituted in cor-
respondence with another world, and we shall
enter it.
" Even so the soul in this contracted state,
Confined to these straight instruments of sense,
More dull and narrowly doth operate ;
At this hole hears, the sight may ray from thence,
Here tastes, there smells ; but when she's gone from hence,
Like naked lamp she is one shining sphere,
And round about hath perfect cognizance,
Whatever in her horizon doth appear,
She is one orb of sense : all eye, all touch, all ear."
Moor, 1650.
The practical inference from facts concerning
the use of our senses is simply the propriety of
taking care to employ them suitably, to preserve
and improve them, since our social comfort and
AND OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR USE. 47
influence, as well as our intellectual advancement,
depend in this world on their integrity. Their
destruction is the exclusion of knowledge and
wisdom at their only entrances. Delicacy of per-
ception is essential to acuteness of intellect; but
perception is perfected rather by the power and
habit of attention in the use of the senses than by
keenness of sensation.
After reading such beautiful narratives as that
of Laura Bridgman, how easy is it to imagine a
human spirit untainted by the loveless experiences
of this selfish world, and released from a body so
stamped with the physical image of inherited moral
disorder, as to be incapable of any distinct idea.
We can imagine the soul of an idiot, for instance,
set free from the body, the tomb in which Omnipo-
tence had interred it, only the better to show forth
His glory. Doubtless many a maternal heart that
loves the mature idiot, as the babe nestled in help
lessness on the bosom, is cheered by this thought.
We may watch its entrance into a world of light,
beauty, and love ; there to be educated by angels
instead of a man, even though such as he who
trained Laura Bridgman, and who seemed indeed
to have been actuated by a feeling of angelic pur-
pose and charity. How rapid the progress of this
unshackled soul in divine learning ! How rap-
turous its joy at the wonders of wisdom every-
where visible ! how unutterable the fullness of its
sympathy with heavenly affections ! And what
human child is not capable of the same expansion
amid the genial influences of heaven, though here
it may have been shut up in a body unfit for mind,
48 THE VALUE OF THE SENSES,
or left at its birth apparently to perish. The spirit
was there struggling for mastery. The germ of
immortality was in it, and that seed shall live and
grow, in spite of visible death and decay, far above
the evil that would cling about its first tendencies
to take root in this earth's accursed soil.
By thus simply gazing in fancy on a naked soul,
we see a ray of light opening into eternity; we
seem to get a glimpse at all the reconciling possi-
bilities, which we so much need to explain to us
the reason of our present mysterious and incongru-
ous existence. But imagination would reveal a
vision too vast and glorious for our present sight.
What is possible we must not inquire. What we
know not now we shall know hereafter. Facts
present are intended to instruct us, and if we duly
observe them they will be ours forever, and we
shall trace their connection with futurity. Rational
inferences from facts are not, however, mere airy
surmises, but 6olid truths; and every expectation,
fairly founded on experience, is of the nature of
true prophecy, being consistent with the universal
reason by which all events are ordered. Hence
the propriety of investigation, and hence the fore-
seeing sagacity which really scientific and truthful
inquiry always confers. Hence, also, the strength
of true religious convictions, and the assurance,
the evidence of things not seen,—the substance
and reality of things hoped for. Any single truth,
followed up in all its relations, connects us with all
other truth. Like the light, however various its
manifestations, it is one in its nature, and it ema-
nates from one source, to which it necessarily con-
AND OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR USE. 49
ducts the eye of all who will look off from the
objects it illuminates to the fountain of light itself.
Since truths are thus connected in one system,
facts can never lead reason astray. She has
power to examine evidence, and will not receive
into her belief any notion which is incompatible
with analogy. Not to compare impression with
experience, is not to reason, but to act like a cer-
tain naval officer, holding a very responsible situa-
tion, who was very fond of making telescopic
observations. Among other strange things, he
solemnly asserted, that when Napoleon abdicated
in 1814, he saw the Emperor's figure in the sun.
The next day the figure appeared like a skeleton,
and on the third day the united colors of the allies
had taken its place. These appearances were
regularly entered in the log-book, and several of
the crew were ready to testify to the accuracy of
the captain's observations. Such facts only prove
that the mind may be so deceived by its own de-
sires as to employ the senses to confirm its errors.
Reason, then, is a better and more certain guide
than the senses. She enables us to discern the
folly of believing according to sight. She looks
deeper than the superficies of things, and enjoys
the consciousness of realities belonging to a region
too bright for any eye but her own to gaze on.
She needs no telescope nor credulous witness to
confirm her faith in those truths which dwell in
the light she is accustomed to. contemplate, and
which are commended to the mind of man by
their fitness to promote his advancement in knowl-
edge, virtue, and happiness. Had not man the
50 THE VALUE OF THE SENSES.
faculty of perceiving truths beyond the sphere of
sense, he would be no better than an irresponsible
brute; and the fact that man infers and travels on
in reason beyond material things, is itself a proof
that his mind is not material.
CHAPTER V.
THE CONNECTION OF THE MIND WITH THE BRAIN, ETC.
A few words concerning the definite nature of
matter will conduct us to a consideration of the
connection of the mind with the brain.
The divisibility of matter has led to curious dis-
cussion, some saying that if matter can not be di-
vided and subdivided without end, and still remain
possessed of dimensions, etc., then it must either
become spirit or be annihilated. Such a notion of
matter is absurd, for it involves the belief of one
of three impossibilities: the conversion of brute
matter into a thinking principle, its withdrawal
from existence, or its capability of being divided
infinitely, that is, that every imaginary particle of
matter may be still divided into as many parts as
there are moments in eternity! Such reasoners
seem to forget that the properties of matter are
imposed by Omnipotence. The will of His wis-
dom limits all things, even the exercise of His
own power. Those materialists who have lost all
idea of Deity in their study of the physical world,
might have learned a different conclusion even
from the law of chemical combination, by which
the elements unite to each other in certain pro-
52 THE CONNECTION OF
portions. Matter must have been made in defi-
nite atoms, or how should different chemical ele-
ments always combine by weight and measure, in
exact order and proportion,—so much of one to so
much of another, and in no other manner 1 The
reason of this universal fact we can understand,
when we conceive that so many definite atoms of
one element combine with so many definite atoms
of another. If there be not definite atoms, how
can there be definite combinations 1
It has also been said, that God could cause
matter to think. Who can say yes ] He has not
made us capable of thinking so. We can not con-
ceive of such matter, for the words thought and
matter always present inconvertible and contra-
dictory ideas; because our rational consciousness
assures us that thought has no analogy to any
known property of matter.
The mental unity, which each man calls J, can
not exist as a part of the body; for what part can
we suppose to be a unit, either in structure, func-
tion, or substance 1 The soul, being one, " spreads
undivided, operates unspent," and confers a kind
of unity upon the organization which it employs,
by the act of using it for one purpose at a time.
It is but one will that enforces the obedience of
the body, therefore no diversity of division in the
organization can destroy the impression of our
unity in volition and feeling. " If joy or sorrow,"
observes Dr. Brown, " be an affection of the brain,
it is an affection of various substances, which,
though distinct in their own existences, we compre-
hend under this single term. If the affection there-
THE MIND WITH THE BRAIN.
53
fore be common to the whole, it is not one joy or
sorrow, but a number of joys and sorrows, corre-
sponding with the number of separate particles
thus affected ; which, if matter be infinitely divis-
ible, may be divided into an infinite number of
little joys or soitows, that have no other relation
to each other than the relations of proximity, by
which they may be grouped together in spheres
and cubes, or other solids, regular or irregular,
of pleasures or pains; but by which it is im-
possible for them to become one pleasure 01
pain."
There are several reasons for believing that the
mind is not confined to the brain, such as the prop-
agation of the lower species of animals by spon-
taneous division, each separate part having a
distinct will and special desires. Then again in
the generation of man,—the germ and fecundating
fluid, being productions of separate individuals,
when brought together produce a new individual
in the likeness of the parents. Hence the mental
principle, if it be propagated and not rather added
to life, when this is developed in certain organiza-
tions, must exist in other parts of the body beside
the brain, and be capable of continuing in a latent
state. If then the mental principle be not limited
to the brain, it follows that the destruction of the
brain does not necessarily destroy the mind, but
only prevents its ordinary manifestation ; and if it
be something superadded to the body, there is no
reason why it should not exist with all its thoughts
out of the body.
M. Flouren's experiments are too numerous and
54
THE CONNECTION OF
extensive to quote; but they prove that tho brain
may be destroyed to a large extent, in any direc-
tion, without destroying any of its functions; but
when the nervous mass, connecting the organs of
the senses and their sympathies together, is divided,
the manifestation of mind is interrupted. It fol-
lows inevitably from his experiments, that the
faculty of perceiving and desiring one object
operates on the same organ as the faculty of per-
ceiving and comparing any other object, and there-
fore the different affections are not functions of
different parts of the brain, as some phrenologists
assert, but of that which uses the brain under
various states of impression, according to its indi-
vidual nature and experience.
In mental derangement,—attention, judgment,
memory, volition, are always more or less disor-
dered ; and yet in the common phrenological sys-
tems these are not represented in any part of the
brain, nor can be; therefore these essential prin-
ciples of mental action must be something more
than functions of the brain. As far as I can
discover, by examination of a multitude of recorded
cases, attention, judgment, memory, and volition
may be all freely exercised by persons in whom
many of the organs appropriated by phrenologists
to the intellect are destroyed or disordered by
disease; but these operations of mind become
deranged whenever the nervous center is rendered
incapable of performing its function, in energizing
the body, so as to hinder the mind from putting
itself and the senses into proper relation to external
influences and to each other; therefore I infer that
THE MIND WITH THE BRAIN. 55
mental insanity, and even what we call uncon-
sciousness, are only the results of physical impedi-
ment to the united and associated action of nerve
under the operation of mind, which is benevolently
constituted to be manifested to other minds only in
connection with a certain state of organization.
Insanity, like certain dreams, seems generally to
be a kind of confusion, arising from a mixture of
memory with present impressions. The conscious-
ness, or the sense of each of the two states that
belong to the mind, is not kept perfectly distinct
as it is in the sound condition of the brain, but the
attention is divided between remembered ideas
and sensible realities, the one being mistaken for
the other. Of course it is the same individual
being which perceives the idea as it exists in the
mind, as a remembered thing, and also the present
impression conveyed at the moment through either
jf the senses.
One of the outrageous consequences of receiving
ihe vulgar phrenological doctrines in their full ex-
travagance has been an attempt to prove, on scien-
tific principles, that the soul itself is double, because
the organs of the body are. But we have seen that
the unity of the mind is not broken in consequence
of its connection with a plurality of organs, and
surely it as easily reasons from the impressions of
two brains as it sees with two eyes. That the two
grand divisions of the brains are practically, as well
as anatomically, two brains, is proved by a number
of cases in which memory and the other functions
of the mind have been exercised without apparent
impairment, in persons who have had one hemi-
56 THE CONNECTION OF
sphere so destroyed by disease as to leave no por-
tion of its substance in a natural state.
Tiedemann relates the case of a lunatic, who was
insane on one side of his head, and who observed
and corrected his insanity with the other. Now it
may be asked, who observed and corrected the
insanity ? The man certainly, not one half of him.
No doubt the diseased brain could not be employed
without occasioning disordered manifestation of
mind; and, of course, as long as the other half of
his brain was awake and obedient to the will, he
could perceive and rebuke the dreamy absurdities
connected with the other. He compared the dis-
eased perception and action with the healthy, and
felt at once which was consistent with waking ex-
perience ; and therefore, by the by, he could have
been but half a lunatic at the worst, and that only
when the sound part of his head was awake. Such
cases, after all, scarcely differ from those in which
individuals consciously labor under illusions of
sense, and are able to rectify false impressions by
comparison with true.
To argue from the duality of the organs, that the
mind, which is manifested through them, is also
dual, is really the same as to argue that two minds
are employed to see with two eyes or hear with
two ears. But consciousness is never double, and
attention is never divided. Transition from thought
to thought and subject to subject may be more
rapid than the light, but yet it is the act of one and
the same mind, to pass from thought to thought,
comparing one with another, and drawing conclu-
sions according to experience. The mind has
THE MIND WITH THE BRAIN. 57
doubtless double dealing enough in the midst of
its mixed motives and clashing interests; but if we
are to infer from hence that there are two minds, it
will puzzle the judge to determine which mind is
at fault and to be punished when the double-minded
man commits a murder; for surely one half of him,
at least, and probably the more perfect, is innocent.
How unjust to hang a whole man for the will of
only one side of him. Alas ! the ingenious plea
will never save him, for common sense is single.
Surely it is a very one-sided reasoning which re-
duces a man of science thus to do things by halves,
and divide the responsibility between his two voli-
tions. It is to be feared that morality and religion
will slip between them and find a place in neither.
Bishop Taylor shall pass sentence on this subject:
"He that will pretend any thing that is beyond
ordinary, as he that wj.ll say that he has two rea-
sonable souls, or three wills, is not to be confuted
but with physic, or by tying him to abjure his folly
till he were able to prove it."
Acuteness of faculty depends on the power of
maintaining attention; but this power is interfered
with by any disorder of the nervous system, because
attention itself is an act of the mind, by which the
nervous system is put into a condition to obey the
soul, to receive impressions from without, or to
operate on muscle. The purpose for which we
possess a duality of organization appears then to
be, that we may be able to attend the longer with-
out fatigue and confusion ; for we rest the one
side while employing the other. If, therefore, we
are deprived of the use of an eye, for instance, we
58 CONNECTION OF THE MIND WITH THE BRAIN.
the sooner find the other to fail, unless it be the
more sparingly engaged. This principle is per-
haps the secret of sympathy between the two sides
of our bodies. Probably the duality of the brain
serves a purpose similar to that of the duality of
the senses. In some relations to the mind, the
double arrangement enables us to continue think-
ing or acting consecutively for a longer time than
would otherwise be possible: the one rests while
the other acts, and so on alternately, until both
alike demand the repose and refreshment to be
obtained only by sleep.
CHAPTER VI.
EVILS OF POPULAR PHRENOLOGY.
\\& dangerous tendency of the popular notions
ck; phrenology is most evident in the excuses it
supplies to those who seek apologies for their moral
depravity, and in the impediments it builds up in
the way of those inquisitive minds that expect to
find in nature a substitute for revelation. Many,
convinced of the authority of the Bible, yet seem
to see so much of demonstration in this pseudo-
science at variance with the* declarations of that
strong book, that they are constantly hanging in
suspense between the ruling faith, in the spiritual
origin of thought, and the vacillating persuasion of
the material beginning and end of mind. With
such persons, morality and Christianity are thus
at stake. A thorough, uncompromising, common
phrenologist must apologize if he exhibit respect
for either divine or human government; since a
will that owns no source but in the accidents of a
man's organization can have no relation to the law
which demands obedience for the common good.
What good can there be to a mind unassociated,
and indeed not existing, but with the body, except
the individual's physical good 1 What community
60 EVILS OF POPULAR PHRENOLOGY.
of interest can there be except among spiritual
beings, that reason, love, and hate on principles
and under laws altogether distinct from any that
regulate material combinations and results ]
If degrees of criminality, as some men teach, be
determined by the relative development of portions
of our brains, and not according to the degree of
our knowledge and the kind of motives presented
to our reason, through our affections in our training,
then the language of the Great Teacher is a vio-
lence to our nature,—" If I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have
no cloke for their sin." These words appear to have
no meaning, unless they signify that the extent of
man's accountableness is commensurate with the
degree of holy truth applied to his understanding.
Although some of the prominent advocates of
phrenology undoubtedly regard that somewhat
rickety science as affording irresistible arguments
in favor of the material theory of mind, and hence
infer that the soul perishes with the body; yet
there are many more who, most heartily following
their confident leaders, believe themselves per-
suaded that phrenology is only a little less certain
than the Gospel; and who nevertheless would not
for the world forego their convictions of a spiritual
and immortal existence. Some have taken a kind
of middle ground, and while stanch in their attach-
ment to the Christian creed, yet imagining they pos-
sess proof in phrenological facts that the soul has
no being without the body, they have endeavored
to prove to their own satisfaction that the Bible re-
veals not a word concerning the distinct existence
EVILS OF POPULAR PHRENOLOGY. 61
of the human spirit, but rather that it declares an
utter death of both soul and body as derived from
Adam. But then they dare not deny that an eter-
nal life and bodily resurrection are promised and
secured in Christ; so they are brought to the con-
clusion, that when a man dies he is annihilated as
an individual being, and by the power of God is
reproduced on some future occasion. Dr. Elliot-
son, president of the Phrenological Society, thus
states, in the Lancet, the position which he adopts :
" By nature all die, are utterly extinguished; and
in another order of things, when the fashion of this
world shall have passed away and time shall be no
more, then in Christ, by the additional gift of God
granted through the obedience of Christ, but con-
sequently by a miracle, not by our nature, we shall
all again be made alive." If Christianity be true,
then science, that is, the classification of natural
facts, will never contradict it; for God must be the
author of both. The scientific part of phrenology
is therefore perfectly compatible with revelation.
But infidelity has deeply stained the speculative and
baseless assumptions which hasty reasoners have at-
tached to that as well as other inquiries. It is, how-
ever, delightful to find that men of the profoundest
science most reverentially acknowledge that man
and Christianity are productions of the same mind,
and that there is nothing in any science at variance
with the New Testament. Yet I can not help think-
ing that Dr. Elliotson, whom we must believe to be a
sincere Christian, on his own confession of hope for
eternal life through Jesus Christ, has followed a
false interpretation in the passage above quoted;
F
62 EVILS OF POPULAR PHRENOLOGY.
for how is it to be reconciled with these texts V—
" Whosoever livcth and believeih in me shall never
die." " This day shalt thou be with me in para-
dise." " We are confident and willing to be absent
from the body and to be present with the Lord"
" For we know that if our earthly house of this tab-
ernacle were dissolved, we have a house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens." These sen-
tences seem plainly to express the fact of a spiritual
existence, or being, at present distinct from the
body, and capable of existence at once in another
sphere. An array of arguments is not needed—
this is sufficient; unless such language, and the
abundance of the same kind in the New Testa
ment, can be proved to mean the reverse of the
apparent meaning.
According to the newest fashion of phrenology,
it is asserted that intellect and emotion, which im-
ply will, operate through the brain as developed in
the front of the head ; and that will, associated with
intellect, emotion, and instinctive propensity, acts
upon the little brain behind, and part of the spinal
chord, so as to excite muscular motion and expres-
sion. These conclusions may perhaps have been
demonstrated, yet all we can infer from such pre-
sumed facts is, that the instruments or organs merely
constitute the media of communication between the
world without and the world within, the material
creation and the spiritual. Facts are really best
explained by supposing a unity of all the sense9
with the brain, and that the spirit, or perceptive
and willing power, has faculties superadded, which
are in correspondence with different portions of the
EVILS OF POPULAR PHRENOLOGY. 63
brain, and therefore capable of being acted upon
by it and acting with it. But how do some phre-
nologists account for the operation of compound
motives, such as we often feel 1 They say it is
done by a sort of sub-committee of the organs—by
a board of control. As Abernethy used to say,
" Pho, pho, if they go to a board of control, I am
content." They thereby at once declare the neces-
sity of a presiding and individual intelligence, en-
dowed with various faculties as the properties of
one being, subject to pain or pleasure, repugnance
or desire, according as the objects presented to the
mind through the senses are adapted, or otherwise,
to these faculties or endowments, which are all as-
sociated with the will, in as far as they are all con-
nected with a sense of the agreeable or disagreea-
ble ; and their very exercise consists in seeking the
one and avoiding the other.
Perceiving, thinking, willing. Meditate on these
things. What are they ? Look upon the brain,
and think. Now put the idea of a brain and your
experience of thought and feeling together; then
say whether organization perceives, reflects, deter-
mines. Is thinking a property of the brain 1 No :
the brain possesses all its material properties as
well when dead as when living, and is as much a
brain when uninfluenced by thought as when by it
excited; therefore thinking is not a property of the
brain: for if the properties of a substance be de-
stroyed, the substance itself is destroyed. Is the
brain constituted to secrete thought and feeling, as
some assert? Where is the analogy between it
and other secerning organs 1 Doubtless it may,
64 EVILS OF POPULAR PHRENOLOGY.
and most likely does, separate something from
the blood, perhaps electricity; and this it may do,
because electricity is evolved in the circulation.
All other secerning organs obtain and secrete mat-
ter chemically like that existing in the blood; but
philosophers have not yet invented tests delicate
enough to detect the elements of thought in the
blood, where of course they ought to be, if separa-
ble from it by the brain. But this is a vulgar view
of materialism. The philosophic materialists are
more profound and refined. Doubtless with hon-
est purpose they push on science to its limits; and
finding matter everywhere, and spirit nowhere,
they conclude that their own intellect results from
atomic affinities, and of course that the mind of the
universe—God, if He be—springs from eternal
matter, which of course had no maker. In short,
matter is their visible almighty, and physical laws,
are his attributes and perfections. No wonder
then that they believe in eternal death; the won
der is that they live and feel and thus reason.
Surely as life is something more than mechan
ism, so thought is something above both. No mix-
ture of substances can produce life, much less mind.
Every living thing is something more than matter,
something more distinct from matter than the ele-
ments are from each other; and it has been prop-
agated, imparted, and extended from a preceding
life, in a manner which matter can not be; after a
type existing in egg or seed, at first impregnated
by the spirit of life, and hence evolving itself in on-
ward generations, still multiplying while advancing.
Thus also it is with the mind, which is something
EVILS OF POPULAR PHRENOLOGY. 65
more than life; and every human spirit is like an
imperishable reflection and visible evidence of Eter-
nal Being, which first fell upon matter when Jeho-
vah breathed life into man's body, and saw in man's
mental and moral existence the everlasting image
of Himself.
5 F*
CHAPTER VII.
THE NATURE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND ITS
OBEDIENCE TO THE WILL.
The nervous system is, perhaps, merely a gal-
vanic apparatus, so contrived as that by it the
chemistry of life is carried on, and those states of
the organs produced which best enable the mind
to receive sensation and to act on the body. That
nerves, under the action of will, are capable of
eliciting electricity, is proved by its actual pro-
duction in the torpedo, the electric eel, and other
creatures that possess an arrangement of nerves
and muscles by which they cari, at will, until fa-
tigued, accumulate and discharge a succession of
shocks. Indeed, a spark from the electric eel may
be made visible and conducted in a circle as from
an ordinary electrical machine. The creature has
a perfect galvanic apparatus extending from ono
end of its body to the other, supplied by two hun-
dred and twenty-four pairs of nerves, which have
no other office but to energize this apparatus, thus
affording the most positive proof that the nervous
power is essential to its galvanic action. Here
then we find a living body capable of fulfilling all
the purposes of a powerful voltaic pile, while ita
NATURE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 67
action or its quiescence is determined by another
still more mysterious agency, namely, the will of
the animal. And here also we again obtain a con-
clusive evidence that will is the act of a distinct
agent, proving its distinctness by its control over a
separate power.
" Weinhold, a German, cut off a cat's head, and
when its arterial pulsation had ceased, took out the
spinal marrow and placed in its stead an amalgam
of mercury, silver and zinc : immediately after this
was done the pulsation recommenced, and the body
made a variety of movements. He took away the
brain and spinal marrow of another cat, and filled
the skull and vertebral canal with the same metal-
lic mixture. Life appeared to be instantly restored;
the animal lifted up its head, opened and shut its
eyes, and, looking with fixed stare, endeavored to
walk; and whenever it dropped, tried to raise it-
self on its legs. It continued in this state twenty
minutes, when it fell down and remained motion-
less. During all the time the animal was thus treat-
ed, the circulation of the blood appeared to go on
regularly; the secretion of gastric juice was more
than usual, and the animal heat was established."
Lancet, Sept. 2d, 1843.
If it be true that the cat really tried to walk—and
there seems no reason to doubt the experiment—it
proves that the power which wills and feels resides
not in the brain and spinal chord, for it continued
capable of acting after these were removed : there-
fore the brain is not necessary to its existence; and
other galvanic media act also as stimuli to the or-
gans through which voliticn evinces itself
68 NATURE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM,
It has long been well known that galvanism, or
electricity—for they are but modifications of the
same thing—is capable of exciting motion even in
the dead body, when transmitted through a muscle
or a nerve of volition. We see that the will in the
torpedo and electric eel produces both electricity
and motion, and we find that a lifeless limb may be
moved by electricity without the will; what can be
a more natural hypothesis therefore than that elec-
tricity is excited through the nervous mass by the
operation of the will, so as to produce muscular ac-
tion 1 The exhaustion of the torpedo's power of
exercising the will, in giving a shock, is an exam-
ple of what always takes place when the will has
been long or powerfully exerted. The nervous ap-
paratus ceases to supply that electric power which
stimulates the muscle; so that it may be used by
the will, and the creature lies tired and torpid till
restored by rest.
Thus we obtain a plausible theory of weariness
or weakness : the nervous system becomes unfit to
provide the proper stimulus to the muscular fiber.
Rest is necessary to accumulate the electricity
which must be produced from the sanguineous cir-
culation. This state of exhaustion may be induced
quite as readily by thinking as by bodily exertion,
for the nervous system is as much excited by the
one as by the other. Indeed, that the former, when
intense, is more injurious to the bodily functions
than the latter, and is not so easily repaired by rest
and nourishment, will be shown as we proceed.
Thinking, with the use of the senses or with an
effort of the will in maintaining attention, is so far a
AND ITS OBEDIENCE TO THE WILL. 6ff
bodily action or function, and that of the most ex-
hausting kind, but the more so because not accom.
panied by a corresponding force of circulation and
of breathing, as in active employment of the limbs.
It is remarkable that insane persons, whose course
of thought, even when most excited, is unattended
by voluntary mental effort, are not nearly so soon
exhausted as studious persons, who think consecu-
tively, and with the attention fixed on their subject
by the mere force of their will.
The power of the determination sometimes acts
beyond the strength of the body. A boxer aims a
blow at his antagonist, he misses his object, and he
breaks the bone of his own arm. The cause is
merely that the mind's action on the muscle was
more powerful than the bone could bear. This
energy of mind in the muscles is sometimes wonder-
fully exhibited by a poor, emaciated madman. The
strong men can not hold him; for though his mus-
cles are mere threads, the violence of his will un-
der frenzy of the brain endows them with untiring
action. But the power of the will upon the mus-
cle is best seen in the fact, that the very fibers that
during life might have been employed to lift a hun-
dred weight, may instantly after death be torn by
the weight of a few ounces. Thus we find that,
even now, the mind acts by imparting a power su-
perior to any within the range of mechanics, and
which absolutely confers strength on the material in
which it operates, by adding to the attraction of co-
hesion, and perhaps overcoming gravitation, as elec-
tricity converts the soft iron into a mighty magnet;
yet there is no real similarity between these facts
70 NATURE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM,
Will energizing atoms has no analogy but in the di-
rect operation of Deity on the universe, which he
actuates and inhabits.
But let us observe what occurs when a man
moves. Here is no preparation but that of the will;
he walks because he wills to walk; his mind's act
is immediately obeyed by his body. There is no
knowledge of the instruments employed, no idea of
nerves and fibers. The mind is sensibly in every
limb, and acts whenever it pleases to act, provided
the mechanism be fit for use. It must be in con-
tact with the instrument, for it can not act without;
it can not act where it is not, therefore the body
bounds the power of the mind. There is no reason
why it should not act indefinitely with a suitable
organization, for even now its energy is limited
only by the imperfection of the materials it em-
ploys ; and in the present economy of our bodies
we possess a type of what we need—an untiring
machinery. There exists such a distribution of
nervous power to certain parts, as the heart and the
muscles by which we perform the act of breathing,
that they are incapable of being fatigued.
A structure completely adapted to the energies
of the unshackled soul must be one that would
offer no impediment to motion, be incapable of ex
haustion, or, like a perpetual lamp, fed with power
as fast as it is used, be indestructible, invulnerable;
in short, a vehicle, like that in the prophet's vision,
so entirely governed by the resident spirit, as to
be whithersoever the spirit would, not in subjec-
tion to earthly attractions and common cohesion,
but a glorious body, fit to be the everlasting as-
AND ITS OUED1ENCE TO THE WILL. 71
sociate of the immortal soul; such as the inspired
apostle describes as springing from the grave at
the word of God, a celestial, a spiritual, an incor-
ruptible body. Why should we deem this impos-
sible ] Do we not now feel that this flesh is no match
for the mighty spirit1? Do we not mourn the
wretchedness of being forced for its sake to stop short
in our pursuit of pleasure or of knowledge 1 Do
we not know that this poor trembling tissue is too
weak to bear the full force of even our narrow will 1
Shall we wonder then that the faithful and Almighty
Father should fully accommodate his children, and
determine, if we rightly seek it, to furnish each one
with a spiritual and an incorruptible body, that we
may the better accomplish His will and thus enjoy
our being.
It must be acknowledged that the language em-
ployed in revealing the doctrine of a resurrection
of the body certainly favors the notions of mate-
rialists, so far as it implies that the use of a body of
some kind is essential to the full and perfect capacity
of human existence; but still it proves that the
spirit is not derived from the flesh, and that it is dis-
tinct from physical arrangement; and so far from
depending on the body, the body is to be recon-
structed with new laws and functions, not to pro-
duce the being—man, but to accommodate him
suitably in some other sphere of action.
Some men sneer at the doctrine of a bodily res-
urrection, and others regard it with undefined
reverence, while perhaps both are equally far from
believing all its fullness; that is, they do not view
the doctrine in all its relations, and with all the sub-
72 NATURE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.
lime connections as expressly revealed and demon-
strated by one crowning fact—the miracle has hap-
pened. Those who receive the doctrine loosely are
in danger of losing sight of its grand importance, and,
having no distinct perception of its necessity, just as
revealed, for the completion of the Christian scheme,
they may at length confound the speculative fancies
of their own whimsical minds, and the dreaming
comments of others, with what God has spoken and
done, so as to render the whole subject a ridiculous
incongruity instead of a sublime and consistent
truth. The mixture of falsehood with fact calm
reason must reject; and the reasoner too often does
not discover that what he has rejected is but a de-
formity, and not the doctrine of the New Testament.
Thus the key-stone of the bridge over the vast dark
gulf between time and eternity is gone, and he
finds no footing when his spirit would travel off
this earth. But let the man who, in any manner,
discredits the resurrection, turn away from meta-
physical questions and look at Christ—living, dead,
buried, risen! Or if he have tenderly loved one
departed in the living faith of a risen Lord, let him
again realize the presence and fellowship of the
beloved object in the promise and the prophecy of
deathless love and eternal happiness. Then let the
bright vision again fade away in death and gloom,
without a star-gleam on the lonely grave ; and when
his spirit seems in outer darkness, let the mourner
read the 15th chapter of the 1st of Corinthians, and
then call the doctrine of the resurrection a trick and
a delusion if he can. But we must return from this
divergence.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE POWER OF ATTENTION, AND ITS CONNECTION
WITH SLEEP.
Let us again reflect a little on the power of at-
tention. Is this a property of the body ? Can the
body produce a faculty capable of regarding its
own wants and influencing its own sensations 1 If
you cease to attend to the senses, you cease to be
conscious of external existence; your body neces-
sarily falls asleep, or you pass into a state of rev-
ery. The body is not then needed for any of the
voluntary acts of the mind. It is not then wanted
by the will; and therefore until some interference
with the repose of the body happens, or some pow-
er agitates its resident spirit, and thus demands the
use of the organization subservient to the will, you
continue without attention to external objects. We
have no proof, however, that the soul also slum-
bers ; but we have reason rather to conclude that
it attends to the past when not engaged with things
present. At least we know we often dream, and to
dream is the business of the mind when combining
past impressions, without regard to the actual state
of the body. When we awake we generally for-
get our dreams, because the soul again wills and
G
74 THE POWER OF ATTENTION, AND
acts in keeping with circumstances around us; and
the machinery of the body, if in health, again obeys
the mandates of the mind. There is something
operating which is so unlike all its influences, that
it can neither be seen nor handled, nor at all per-
ceived, but in its action upon matter.
When not using the body, that is, when not
employing material substances, the mind acknowl-
edges neither time nor space, for it is not governed
by physical laws. Hence it is that, if no haunting
anxiety perplex the mind and no disorder disturb
the organism of the associate body, as often and as
regularly as the curtain of nightly shade falls around
us, and we desire to withdraw our attention, the
senses sleep; and, at the touch of light, the con-
senting spirit within again awakes them to the
wonders of a daily resurrection. During the inter-
val between the evening and morning, what intri-
cate visions of activity and interest, all according to
some important law of our being, crowd upon the
busy soul, not indeed in the distinctness of a meas-
ured and material succession, but as if at once past
and yet present. There is no consciousness of time
in our dreams; for a sense of time arises from a
comparison of the relative duration of material
changes, and therefore belongs only to the outward
use of the mind. In the imaginings or fanciful but
instructive blendings of past ideas in our profounder
slumbers, we are but in the spirit, without the per
ception of circumstances; and the action of the
soul, like itself, has no dependence on minutes and
hours ; for it knows no division, no dimensions, and
is comprehended only by the mind of Him who
ITS CONNECTION WITH BLEEP. 75
produced it. But even in sleep the spirit usually
preserves a kind of discriminating vigilance with
regard to the sense of hearing at least, so as to
distinguish the meaning of sounds. Thus the
mother whose mind is naturally engrossed by the
infant that depends on her for every help, will sleep
profoundly amid the incessant din and rattle of a
London thoroughfare, or of carriages and the rout,
it may be next door, but the smallest sound from
her baby will instantly awaken her.
This perception during sleep, however, must be
greatly modified by the previous habit and by the
state of mind at the time. One unaccustomed to
the rushing and roaring of a steam-vessel at sea
would scarcely be able to sleep, but the captain
would probably start up in a moment if the engine
were to stop.
The action of the mind on the circulation, and
the development of nervous energy in the use of
the senses and muscles, while we are awake, is of
so positive and exhausting a nature, as regards the
powers of the body, that a continuance of sleep-
lessness must terminate in death. There is reason
to believe that growth or addition to the body never
takes place while the senses are engaged, in conse-
quence of the demand made by the mind in main-
taining their action. What we understand by fa-
tigue is the felt unfitness of the body any longer
to subserve the outward purposes of the mind. If
we do not yield to the sense of weariness, but
struggle against it by strong effort; or if, in conse-
quence of some interesting subject engrossing the
affections and powerfully exciting the will, we find
76 THE POWER OF ATTENTION, AND
that we can not sleep, the body rapidly becomes
diseased, and the manifestations of the mind assume
an irregular and disordered character. In short,
long-continued vigilance is a frequent cause of insan
ity as well as of other bodily maladies. It is re-
markable, however, that when mental derangement
is established from this cause, the patient often re-
gains a considerable degree of bodily vigor, al
though he enjoy an extremely small degree of per
feet sleep. This fact is probably explained by the
circumstance that an insane person does not use his
senses in the same attentive manner as a sane indi-
vidual, but he behaves as if acting in a dream. The
brain in such cases is but partially awake, or at
least is in such a state that the mind can not so
act upon it as to keep it in the condition necessary
for orderly and vigilant thinking; and therefore it
can not be exhausted as we experience it to be by
mental effort. The madman's thoughts, like dreams,
are fashioned into fantastic and mysterious visions,
in keeping indeed with his past history and re-
membrance ; the ideas are impressed upon his liv-
ing soul, but irrespective of any resolute demand
of his will, though never, as I believe, without rela
tion to his moral characteristics.
Sleep results from a constitutional bodily neces-
sity ; the attention of the mind must be withdrawn
from the body, or the machinery of nerves and
blood-vessels can not be properly repaired and fit-
ted for further action. The body requires rest,
the mind does not; and the body needs it only
because the structure of its parts will not bear
the incessant operation of the mind upon it. Un-
ITS CONNECTION WITH SLEbJP 77
less the structure be rendered quite unfit for the
use of the mind, it is always roused into action
whenever an appeal is made to the soul by any
influence. In short, it is manifest that the thinking
and acting principle does not sleep at all, in the
sense in which the body sleeps, when the mind is
not using it; for the mind is always ready for
action whenever the organization is in a fit state
to convey impression and to be employed. As
surely as physical phenomena excite sensation
during sleep, as in some dreams, so surely do
they prove, that during sleep there is no absolute
Suspension of the faculty of perception. That we
awake at the bidding of a bodily necessity, as also
we fall asleep, is an evidence that the mind only
partially retires from the senses till outward oc-
casion demands the physical operation of the will.
It is simply ridiculous to say, as some do, that
the brain is actively employed in taking up recol-
lected impressions of the thousand associations of
past thought and feeling, in dreaming and insanity,
and yet to deny that the brain produces mind;
for if the mind does not recollect these past
associations, the brain must; but as manifested
mind (so called) consists of these very thoughts
and feelings, mind itself, as a distinct thing, has
no existence, if their production and reproduction
be only a function of the brain. The cessation
of the brain is then the cessation of the thinking
principle,—they are one. Is it not more reason-
able to consider dreaming and insanity as mind or
soul in action, without any distinctness of exterior
purpose or aim, such as we feel while acting in out
G*
78 THE POWER OF ATTENTION, AND
social relations, and in consciousness of responsi-
bility, because we then recognize the propriety
of those laws by which our actions should be
governed in relation to others, and for our own
sakes 1
Ideas are remembered impressions, and dreams
are confused ideas: if, then, ideas are mental,
dreams are mental. There are laws under which
the soul acts in dreaming, as well as in thinking,
and it is often difficult to distinguish these acts.
Neither the danger nor the absurdity of consider-
ing dreaming as a mental act is very apparent, not-
withstanding this opinion has been regarded with»a
sort of pious dread by some writers, who attribute
dreaming to the spontaneous action of an irritated
brain ; as if they escaped from the dilemma of ma-
terialism by representing waking ideas as the re-
sult of a spiritual intelligence, and those arising
during sleep as the sole offspring of a writhing bun-
dle of fibers. Such timid reasoning, after all its
agony, only pictures the mind as more completely
an accident of matter, unless such language be
meant merely to signify that ideas in sleep are not
directed by the same degree or kind of mental
determination as during the periods of vigilance
and watchfulness. This, however, no one denies;
and it is perfectly consistent with the notion, that
the being that thinks is stimulated by impressions
derived through the nervous system,—it is actuated
by motive, by the agreeable or disagreeable; but
then the nervous system, which only communicates
the causes of sensations, not the sensations them-
selves, can not originate the thinking being itself,
ITS CONNECTION WITH SLEEP. 79
nor confer any of its properties. It is the property
of this being to be roused into ordinary activity by
impressions on the nerves ; and all the phenomena
of dreams and disorder of the brain are precisely
such as we should look for under such an arrange-
ment, when we reflect that the attention is more
or less withdrawn from the senses in these cases,
as we shall discover by reference to facts.
Experiment demonstrates that the power of
attending to the senses may be influenced by the
occupation of the mind, or by the state of the
organization, and of course our common con-
sciousness or unconsciousness, when we are not
asleep, is only the condition of the soul in regard
to the senses, that is, to external attention. In
dreaming, there is always consciousness at the
time of the ideas passing, and yet on waking we
do not always, nor indeed generally, remember
that we have dreamed ; so that in fact we are con-
scious in one state, without being aware of it in
another. This fact is abundantly proved, as we
shall see, and it furnishes demonstration that the
mind may be active during what we call a state
of insensibility, and may require only some slight
change in the connection of the faculty or power
of soul by which we remember, to enable us to
recall with distinctness the condition and employ-
ment of mind during such a state of apparent
suspense ; just as we recognize in waking memo-
ry the various experiences of our wakeful life.
Some link in the chain is wanting to complete
the circle, which, being completed, one end is
connected with the other; the current of thought
80 THE POWER OF ATTENTION, ETC
returns, and we become conscious of its unbroken
action. There is no possibility of understanding
this subject, without bearing in mind our double
consciousness, that with the senses and that with-
out their use. But it is fruitless to attempt reason^
ing without facts ; these supersede all other argu-
ments, and to facts, therefore, we shall always
appeal. Yet we should not disregard the sug-
gestion that the mind may possess a power, here-
after to be developed, by which it shall be enabled
to connect all its ideas and dreams together, and
perceive the mutual relation of its two states of
consciousness.
CHAPTER IX.
THE STATE OF THE WILL IN DREAMING.
Thinking is that action of the mind by which we
become conscious of existence, either in the re-
membrance of the past, the perception of the pres-
ent, or the expectation of the future. Thought, as
it regards our observation of facts, is always volun-
tary. An act of the will precedes or accompanies
attention, whether to sensible or ideal objects. As
our experience is actual, we of course at once asso-
ciate sensation with an object; hence imagination,
or the action of mind abstract from sense, supplies
an appropriate succession of ideas, by the law of
association. The faculty of conceiving unreal cir-
cumstances, or things not present, although ordina-
rily unattended by volition in the restricted sense,
yet never proceeds altogether without the operation
of the will; for mental abstraction commences and
is maintained by a determinate effort. In this case,
however, we preserve a certain control ovef the
body. But in dreams, or in revery of the most
profound kind, the mind seems more detached from
the physical organization. Still even then we at-
tend to the ideas presented, and, to a great extent,
reason and decide concerning them according to
6
82 STATE OF THE WILL IN DREAMING.
the moral principles which habitually regulate our
conduct; so that in fact our dreams would well re-
veal to us the state of our hearts and our habits, foi
in them our wills are freer from restraint, and oui
desires are more undisguised by the hypocrisies of
waking life. As Sir Thomas Browne says, in his
tract on dreams, " Persons of radical integrity will
not easily be perverted in their dreams, nor noble
minds do pitiful things in sleep." " Though bound-
ed in a nut-shell, I might fancy myself a king of
infinite space, but that I have had dreams," exclaims
Hamlet. These visions of the night indeed instruct
us concerning our characters ; and though they are
produced involuntarily, yet they test the conscience
and prove the state of our dispositions. The facts
about to be related will fully confirm the truth of
this observation, and assist to sustain the opinion
that all thinking is influenced by the previous habit
and training of the will.
That volition is not suspended during sleep, is
proved by many facts; and probably the experi-
ence of every person who remembers his dreams
affords evidence that the will is as busy during
sleep as when awake. But the fact is strikingly
illustrated by examples of remarkable exertion of
will, in the employment of intellect and genius du-
ring sleep. Tartini, a celebrated violin player,
composed his famous Devil's Sonata while he
dreamed that the devil challenged him to a trial of
skill on his own violin. Cabanis often, during his
dreams, saw clearly into the bearing of political
events which baffled him when awake. Condorcet
frequently left his deep and complicated calcula-
STATE OF THE WILL IN DREAMING. 83
tions unfinished when obliged to retire to rest, and
found their results unfolded in his dreams. Cole-
ridge's account of his wild composition, Kubla
Khan, is very curious. He had been reading Pur-
chas's Pilgrimage, and fell asleep at the moment
he was reading this sentence—" Here the Khan
Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a
stately garden thereunto." He continued in pro-
found sleep about three hours, during which he had
a vivid confidence that he composed from two to
three hundred lines; if, as he says, that can be
called composition in which all the images rose up
before him as things with a parallel production of
correspondent expressions. On awakening he ap-
peared to have a distinct recollection of the whole,
and proceeded to write down the wonderful lines
that are preserved, when he was interrupted, and
could never afterward recall the rest.
We might multiply examples; but all we could
adduce would demonstrate no more than the fore-
going, though they might afford additional presump-
tion that the mind is generally employed during
sleep, on its chosen or accustomed subjects, and
that dreams indicate our spiritual condition, be-
cause in them those faculties and feelings are most
active which we most energetically exercise while
awake.
In short, it appears that the contact of any dis
turbing power with the mind, whether awake or
asleep, necessarily causes it to act and will accord-
ing to its habit and character. Every new sensa-
tion is unaccountably connected with some preceding
sensation, so that volition and memory are the
84 STATE OF THE WILL IN DREAMING.
necessary characteristics of manifested mind. No
subtilty of reasoning has been able to account for
these powers or peculiarities of mind on a material
theoiy. Phrenologists and metaphysicians, with
all their grand and cloudy pretensions, have added
nothing important to our knowledge concerning
them. All their elaborate disquisitions exhibiting
the operation of mental function in unison with or-
ganization, teach us no more than we previously
knew, namely, that the functions of the mind and
brain are created to act together at present. They
leave us in possession of the capital and most inter-
esting fact, that we do will and we do remember,
but they can not tell us how. Still they must
acknowledge that these wonderful powers result
from the operation of some thing or being, which
chooses between pleasant and unpleasant sensations,
both when the body sleeps and when it wakes ; and
which some thing or being also recalls past im-
pressions according to certain laws of association
and certain states of mind and body. That is, our
Maker has bound our faculties to act in a certain
order, under certain circumstances; in short, that
He holds dominion over mind as well as matter,
for purposes hereafter to be revealed.
CHAPTER X.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE POWER OF THE MIND IN
DREAMING, SOMNAMBULISM ETC.
The importance of reflecting on volition and
memory will be best demonstrated by facts, and an
acquaintance with these principles will most fully
manifest the nature of our existence, as constituted
to be modified and actuated by moral forces. The
senses are impressed whenever their objects are
present, but the mind itself receives no impression
unless disposed to attend. Thus we find that
when the mind is fully intent upon one class of
objects or ideas, it wholly disregards all others;
as when the absent man forgets the presence of
his friends, or the imaginative man revels in his
ideal world to the detriment of his well-being in
this lower and more palpable existence. Many
curious instances of this want of attention to the
senses may be related, the most remarkable of
which very nearly approximate to insanity, which
probably in most cases is properly described as
being out of the senses. Those images and inti-
mations which the senses continue correctly to
exhibit, are disregarded or perverted by the mind
while it is busied about sensations or impressions
H
86 THE POWER OF THE MIND IN
produced or excited by some disordered action of
the brain; which, being the organ on which the
thinking power immediately acts, and through
which it directly receives all its intelligence con-
cerning the external world, of course must con-
stantly modify the manifestation of mind according
to the healthiness of its structure and function.
Somnambulism, or sleep-walking, affords good ex-
amples of mental activity without attention to the
impression made on the senses. Somnambulists
generally walk with their eyes open, but it is
evident that they do not employ them. A man
has been known to fall asleep while walking, at the
end of a fatiguing journey, and he could not be
roused from his sleep without great difficulty, al-
though he continued to walk in company with his
friends for a considerable distance. It is indeed
a well-authenticated fact, that in the disastrous
retreat of Sir John Moore, many of the soldiers
fell asleep, yet continued to march along with
their comrades.
In connection with this subject we have an illus-
tration of the genius of Shakspeare. He was so
observant of nature, and so well distinguished the
apparent from the actual, that his descriptions even
of disease are so marvelously truthful that the
teacher of pathology may often quote them as the
best guides to his pupils. He gives a lucid glimpse
at the phenomena of somnambulism and sleep-
talking, when he describes Lady Macbeth in " the
unnatural troubles of her unnatural deeds, dis-
charging the secrets of her infected mind to her
deaf pillow." He represents the abrupt and sug-
DREAMING AND SOMNAMBULISM. 87
gcstive vision of circumstances, in which the soul
reenacts her terrible part, precisely as those often
witness who are attendant on talking dreamers and
insane persons. The only evident difference be-
tween these classes is, that the latter seem to dream
on when quite awake, and force their senses to
confirm their fancies.
" I have seen her rise from her bed," says the
gentlewoman, " throw her night-gown upon her,
unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write
upon it, read it, afterward seal it, and again return
to bed; yet all this while fast asleep."
" Doct.—You see her eyes are open.
Gent.—But their sense is shut."
In these cases we observe that the mind controls
the actions of the voluntary muscles, and continues
attending to visible objects, without employing the
sense of sight, and apparently receives impressions
of sound, while the auditory nervous apparatus is
quite insensible. It may be true that certain por-
tions of brain sleep while other portions remain
awake ; but what does that signify 1 Can one part
of the brain subserve the purposes of the other
parts, and those organs which phrenologists appro-
priate to thought, furnish a substitute in their own
action for that of the instruments of vision and of
hearing 1 If so, their system must be false; for
faculty is not limited according to their cranial
maps, the provinces of which are boldly defined by
very imaginary lines indeed. But what is the dif-
ference in the state of the brain during sleeping
and waking 1 Happily we are supplied with facts
which in some measure answer this question, and
88 THE POWER OF THE MIND IN
prove to our satisfaction that both brain and mind
act altogether, and not by bits.
Sir Astley Cooper had a patient, whose skull
being imperfect, allowed him to examine the move-
ments of the brain. Sir Astley says, " I distinctly
saw the pulsation of the brain was regular and
slow, but at this time he was agitated by some op-
position to his wishes ; and directly the blood was
sent with increased force to the brain, the pulsation
became frequent and violent." Dr. Pierquin wit-
nessed the following case in the hospital of Mont-
pellier, in 1821. Dr. Caldwell states that "the
subject of it was a female, who had lost a large
portion of the skull and dura mater in a neglected
attack of lues venerea. When she was in a dream-
less sleep her brain was motionless; when her sleep
was imperfect and she was agitated by dreams, hei
brain protruded from the cranium; in vivid dreams,
reported as such by herself, the protrusion was con-
siderable; and when perfectly awake, especially
if engaged in active thought or sprightly conversa-
tion, it was greater still." We may observe that,
in dreams reported by herself to be vivid, the brain
protruded. These dreams must then have occurred
during the transition from sleep to waking, for we
shall learn from numerous other facts that the most
perfect dreams are those which are not remember-
ed. Here, moreover, we have a demonstration
that the brain is roused by the mind; for mind
must first have responded to the call, whatever the
medium of the sensation which caused the patient
to awake. We also see that the brain, during ac-
tive thought, must have been injected with addi-
DREAMING AND SOMNAMBULISM. 89
tional blood in every part of it, for doubtless it
would have become enlarged in all directions at
once, had the skull allowed. This must always be
the tendency whenever the supply of blood is in-
creased in the brain, if we understand any thing
of its mechanism and circulation; for branches
spread to every part from the larger blood-vessels;
and as there are no valves, the supply must flow to
all, as water flows through every open pipe con-
nected with the main. But perhaps some ques-
tioner would suggest that the mind possesses power
to control the supply, and cause it to pass with
more or less freedom in certain parts of the brain,
according to circumstances. This indeed may
readily be granted; for it substantiates what is con-
tended for, namely, that the mind acts independ-
ently and as a whole, not as a loose bundle of sep-
arate faculties, each self-moved; and that mind acts
according to its will, that is, its nature, taking this
or that direction, as it is impressed.
Yet we have no proof that brain thus responds
in parcels to the impress of the mind, and even if
we had, it would no more prove that mind results
from the action of the brain than from the use of
our limbs, through which also the mind is manifest-
ed by calling them into action. At any rate, the
oneness of the mind, and therefore its independence
on successive conditions of brain and faculty, must
be acknowledged; for surely it is the same mind
which experiences all the successions of sensation
and of thought. How then does this fact agree
with the assumption that the healthy brain may be
active in one part and dormant in another ? The
H*
90 THE POWER OF THE MIND IN
state and power of attention alone explain the mys-
tery. We find that mental activity, when directed
to the body, causes an instantaneous increase in the
supply of blood to the brain, which of course we
should expect, because the blood furnishes the ma-
terial, whether electrical or not, which excites the
whole bodily apparatus into action when the will
demands it. This fact, however, brings us very
little nearer to the unravelment of the tangled clew
that must guide us from the mazes of science and
surmise.
It is evident that the integrity of mental action is
not dependent on the waking activity of the brain,
or at least of that portion of it which is more imme-
diately connected with the senses; for, notwith-
standing the last-mentioned facts, we possess incon-
trovertible evidence in preceding facts that the mind
is sometimes employed more clearly in profound
sleep than when the attention is in any degree di-
rected to the senses. Dr. Abercrombie relates that
an eminent lawyer had been consulted respecting
a case of great difficulty and importance, and after
several days of intense attention to the subject, he
got up in his sleep and wrote a long paper. The
following morning he told his wife that he had had
a most interesting dream, and that he would give
any thing to recover the train of thought which had
then passed through his mind. She directed him
to his writing desk, where he found his opinion
clearly and luminously written out.
It is contrary to all the physiology of the case to
conclude, as some most hastily have done, that it is
but a lighter kind of sleep which is associated with
DREAMING AND SOMNAMBULISM. 91
somnambulism ; for this condition results from nerv-
ous exhaustion, and is apt, like delirium, to occur in
the most marked manner in persons in whom the
quantity of blood is deficient. The difficulty of
arousing such patients is always in proportion to the
completeness of the attack ; that is, in proportion to
the energy with which the will is at work without
attending to the body,—a sufficient proof that the
sleep, whether partial or perfect, is yet profound.
This kind of sleep never seems to happen but when
the nervous system demands unusual repose, being
greatly worn by some bodily irritation or mental
disquietude. The abuse of the passions most fre-
quently predisposes to its worst forms. That the
mind should act thus vigorously when the body is
exhausted, and be most energetic when the heart
beats low and the cheek is blanched, is at best but
indifferent attestation to the truth of the theory that
requires mind to be merely the effect of blood act-
ing upon brain, or a kind of compound engendered
by their mixture, which will be most strongly man-
ifested when the mixture is most active, like the
electric fluid from the acid and the metals in the
galvanic trough.
Dr. Darwin (Zoonomia, p. 221), relates a case
which he witnessed, of a young lady who, after
being exhausted by violent convulsions, was sud-
denly affected by what he calls revery. She con-
versed aloud with imaginary persons, her eyes
were open, but so intently was her mind occupied
that she could not be brought to attend to external
objects by the most violent stimulants. The con-
versations were quite consistent. Sometimes she
92 THE POWER OF THE MIND IN
was angry, at other times very witty, but most fre-
quently inclined to melancholy. Indeed, it appears
that this revery only exalted her natural versatility
of temper and intellect. She sang with accuracy,
and repeated many pages from the poets. In re-
peating some lines from Pope, she forgot a word,
and after repeated trials regained it. In subse-
quent attacks she could walk about the room, and,
although she could not see, she never ran against
the furniture, but always avoided obstacles. Dr.
Darwin convinced himself that in this state she was
not capable of seeing or hearing in the ordinary man-
ner. It is observable in this case that volition was
not suspended; she regained, by effort, the lost word
in repeating the poetry, and deliberated according
to the natural habit of her mind; yet, when the
paroxysm was over, she could not recollect a single
idea of what had passed in it.
The relation between dreaming and somnambu-
lism is remarkably exhibited by the manner in which
the current of dreams may be directed in certain
individuals, by impressing thefr senses during sleep.
An officer, engaged in the expedition to Louisburg,
in 1758, was so peculiarly susceptible of such im-
pressions that he afforded his companions much
amusement by the facility with which they could
cause him to dream. Once they conducted him
through a quarrel which ended in a duel: the pis-
tol was placed in his hand, he fired, and was awak-
ened by the report. They found him asleep on a
locker, when they made him believe he had fallen
overboard. They told him a shark was pursuing
him, and entreated him to dive for his life, and he
DREAMING AND SOMNAMBULISM. 93
threw himself with great force on the cabin floor.
After the landing of the army at Louisburg, his
friends found him one day asleep in his tent, and
evidently much annoyed by the cannonading. They
then made him believe he was engaged, when he
expressed great fear and a disposition to run away.
They remonstrated, but increased his fears by imi-
tating groans, and when he asked who was hit, they
named his particular friends. At last they told him
the man next him had fallen, when he sprung out
of bed, rushed out of the tent, and ended his dream
by falling over the tent ropes. He had no recollec-
tion of his dreams.
The following instance is related in the first vol-
ume of the Lancet. George Davies, sixteen years
old, in the service of Mr. Hewson, butcher, of
Bridge-road, Lambeth, being fatigued, bent for-
ward in his chair, and, resting his forehead on his
hands, fell asleep. After ten minutes he started up,
went for his whip, put on his spurs, and went to the
stable. Not finding his own saddle in the proper
place, he returned to the house and asked for it.
Being asked what he wanted with it, he replied, to
go his rounds. He returned to the stable, got on
the horse without the saddle, and was proceeding
to the street, when, with much difficulty and force,
he was removed from his horse. He thought him-
self stopped at the turnpike gate, took sixpence out
of his pocket to be changed, and holding out his
hand for the change, the sixpence was returned to
him. He immediately observed, " None of youi
nonsense; that is the sixpence again—give me my
change." When 2£d. was given to him, he counted
94 THE POWER OF THE MIND IN
it over, and said, " None of your gammon—that is
not right—I want a penny more ;" making the
3id., which was his proper change. He then said,
" Give me my castor" (meaning his hat), which
slang term he had been in the habit of using, and
then began to whip and spur to get his horse on.
Mr. Hewson related the circumstance, in his hear-
ing, of a Mr. Hairis, optician, in Holborn, whose
son, some years since, walked out on the parapet
of the house in his sleep. The boy joined the con-
versation, and observed that he lived at the cornel
of Brownlow-street. After being bled, he awoke,
got up, and asked what was the matter (having
then been one hour in the trance), not having the
slightest recollection of any thing that had pass-
ed. His eyes remained closed the whole of the
time.
According to a report made by the Committee
of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, that
process which is called animal magnetism appears
to have the power of producing a remarkable kind
of somnambulism. The facts about to be related
seem too startling to be easily credited; but the
testimony of such men as Cloquet, Georget, and
Itard, is not to be lightly esteemed; and they all
concur in bearing witness to the truth of the case
—A lady, 64 years of age, had a cancer in hei
breast. She was magnetized, as it is called, foi
the purpose of dissolving the tumor, but the only
effect was to throw her into a state in which exter-
nal sensibility was removed, while her ideas and
power of conversing retained all their clearness.
In this condition her surgeon induced her to submit
DREAMING AND SOMNAMBULISM. 95
to an operation. Having given her consent, she
sat down upon a chair, and the diseased part was
deliberately dissected out, while she continued con-
versing about the different stages of the operation
being perfectly insensible of pain. On awakening
she had no consciousness whatever of having been
operated upon. She was a lady of great respect
ability, and resided at No. 151, Rue St. Deuis,
Paris.
This case is not quoted either for or against
mesmerism. The operation having been really per-
formed, and the patient having appeared indifferent
to pain, it equally well answers the purpose of il-
lustration ; for if truly the effect of mesmerism, it
proves the power of causing a wonderful sort of
abstraction, during which the mind may perceive
what goes on in the organs, and employ them too,
without sensation in them. And if this case be
an imposition in that respect, it yet proves the
mastery of the will in maintaining the attention ac-
cording to purpose in almost as marvelous a man-
ner. An anonymous opposer of mesmerism lately
announced, in a periodical, that the lady had con-
fessed her imposition; but, on subsequent inquiry
of the celebrated surgeon who operated, and of
others who intimately knew her, they positively
denied that there was any deception, or that she
had ever confessed any thing to that effect. When
Dr. Caldwell, of America, asked M. Cloquet, who
operated in this case, if he had ever seen a patient
in the ordinary state who bore pain as unmoved, he
answered, " Jamais ! jamais ! jamais !" He also
said he was quite sure that she never made the confes
96 THE POWER OF THE MIND, ETC.
sion alluded to. This subject will again claim our
attention, when more fully and particularly consid-
ering the morbid influences of the mind on the
body.
0 rtAi*TER XL
•THE STA'ft; v'i f'tlfi ATTENTION MODIFIES SENSATION.
We have .Uriah 10 believe that whenever disor-
dered action of the mind occurs, a corresponding
disorder takes place in the nervous organization;
but it always manifests itself at first, and indeed
more or less throughout its course, by new and ir-
regular whimsicalities of will, the attention being
withdrawn from ordinary objects, and the mind
impressed by some false conviction or unreasonable
desire. In short, insanity appears to be a disease
in which the mind is rendered incapable of due at-
tention, either to ideas existing in the memory or
to new impressions on the senses, in consequence
of being possessed by some false notion, to such an
extent, that it can not view any subject or idea,
bearing any relation to that notion, except in such
a manner as shall confirm the false impression.
Whatever is presented to the mind in association
with that false impression, at once causes the mind,
according to a common law of its operation, to
attend to the prominent notion, which thus assumes
the character of an indisputable truth—an axiom
—a faith, to which every thing must conform.
The following anecdote will illustrate the power
7 I
98 ATTENTION MODIFIES SENSATION.
of this kind of false belief, and at the same time
demonstrate that mental persuasion is superior to
the impressions of bodily necessity. A man will
starve to death rather than renounce what he re
gards as truth.
A clergyman, about forty years of age, while
drinking wine, happened to swallow with it the seal
of a letter which he had just received. One of his
companions seeing him alarmed, for the sake of a
foolish jest, cried out, " It will seal up your bowels."
These words taking effect upon his brain while
excited by a fright, caused the gentleman to be-
come suddenly insane. From that moment he was
the victim of melancholy, and in a few days he re-
fused to swallow any kind of nourishment, alledging
as a reason that " he knew nothing would pass
through him." The plentiful operation of a power
ful cathartic, which his physician forced him to take
failed to convince him of the patency of his bowels.
Coaxing and threats were equally unavailing ; his
mind would not consent that any thing should pass
down into his stomach, and he died of a mad idea.
All prejudice which disqualifies an individual
from comparing evidence is, so far, disorder of
intellect. The will is •thus engaged, and can not
attend to new claimants, so as to determine justly
concerning them. In madness, the prejudice and
perversion are more decided, and, for the most
part, more honest than those which cause divisions
among responsible men. Like children looking
through different colored glasses at the sun, each
believes that his own fragment presents the only
proper hue.
ATTENTION MODIFIES SENSATION. 99
In mental derangement, the deficiency, as re-
spects the power of attending to sensation, may
be very partial, and even limited to one subject.
As regards that subject, the faculty of discrimina-
tion is lost. Any attempt to compare only re-
produces the same image. Thus a man may
believe, as the celebrated Simon Browne did, that
he has lost his rational soul, while, at the same
time, exerting the highest order of intellect. This
person, in dedicating a controversial work to Queen
Anne, says of himself, " he was once a man of some
little name, but of no worth, as his present un-
paralleled case makes too manifest; for, by the
immediate hand of God, his very thinking sub-
stance has been wasting away for seventeen years,
till it is wholly perished." So completely does the
dominant idea sometimes possess the attention, that
certain deranged persons become almost insensible
to external impressions, and are able, if they will,
like that pseudo-saint, Macarius, to stand in a state
of nudity for months together, in a marsh, exposed
to the bite of every noxious insect.
The soul seems conscious only of those things
that suit the state of its will. We see, whenever
we have means of detecting it, that the will is
always engaged about its business ; for, as far as
we can observe the mind's operations, it is ever
comparing, choosing, or pursuing. We sleep, and
lose sight of realities; we awake, and lose sight
of dreams, only because our attention is fixed on
what is present to the mind's consciousness of
things external or within itself; but still, sleeping
or waking, the thinking i)rinciple is equally intent,
100 ATTENTION MODIFIES SENSATION.
and equally engaged. Circumstances change not
its nature, but only modify its operation. Even
apparent unconsciousness is no proof of its sus-
pension. Let the same circumstances return, and
the mind manifests itself in the same manner, for
neither physical elements nor spiritual dynamics
can alter the affinities of the soul, or liberate it
from the necessity of choice and action, according
to the constitution in which it was created. The
freedom of its will is limited to its sphere, and any
contrariety in its movements to Divine Law brings
it in contact with some obstacle, so that persist-
ence in erroneous desire leads only to increased
suffering; and as a creature is rendered incapable
of its natural delight when in darkness, so every
rational soul finds its proper liberty only in return-
ing to the true light, which is true love.
Those forms of insanity, sleep-walking and sleep-
talking, which so frequently present themselves,
prove, as before observed, that mental activity is
not proportioned to the wakefulness of the senses,
nor indeed necessarily associated with sensation,
but rather the reverse ; at least it appears that the
mind in such cases is occupied not so much in
attending to external things as to fancies ; or if in
any degree to realities, only so far as to mix them
with imagined or remembered circumstances. This
is perfectly consonant with all we know of the mind;
for though ideas are first excited by some peculiar
condition of the organization, in keeping with cer-
tain states of mental faculty, yet the ideas or images
of things afterward continue to play their parts in
the dramas of the soul, without its recurring to the
ATTENTION MODIFIES SENSATION. 101
help of renewed sensation. The senses then are
no part of our consciousness, or of ourselves, for
individuality does not consist of parts; it is the
one and indivisible being, the ego ipse, which per-
ceives and wills.
The senses convey the exciting causes of new
thoughts to our minds, but the elements of the
thoughts themselves always reside in the mind,
which forms the thought; for there is no neces-
sary connection between the sensation and the
idea awakened by it, but in the nature and prop-
erty of the thinking principle itself. It is this
which gives appropriate forms to appropriate im
pressions, or interprets sensations in keeping with
some preexisting ordinance of the soul. We
see, we feel, we hear, according to a power apart
from sense, or not necessarily associated with it,
and according to a nature that may see, hear, feel,
in a different manner with different instruments, or
even immediately, that is, without instruments, and
rather according to the state of the will than the
state of the body.
Here an observation concerning the phenomena
attributed to mesmerism may be again ventured
If philosophical witnesses have not avouched falla-
cies and tricks to be facts and fair-dealing, we pos-
sess demonstration that sensation is not essential
to perception; for men whom we have been accus-
tomed to think shrewd physiologists, whose opinions
in other matters have been deemed most wisely
founded on observation, are ready to declare their
conviction—that individuals in a certain state of
mesmeric excitation, are in the habit of dispensing
102 ATTENTION MODIFIES SENSATION.
with the use of their senses in holding communica-
tion with things about them. The cases of clair-
voyance are numerous, and related with all appear-
ance of honest simplicity, in most of the treatises
on mesmerism. Now, if we may rely on theso
experiments, it follows,
I. That the mind in the normal state perceives
objects through sensation, but may, in a disturbed
state, perceive objects directly.
II. Objects perceived directly convey the same
impression with objects perceived through sensa-
tion; therefore external objects are real.
III. The mind is capable of acting independent-
ly of its organs; therefore the mind may exist
without the body (see Mayo on the Nervous Sys-
tem). Since, then, it is so boldly declared that facts
from all quarters conduce to such important con-
clusions, it behooves the philosophic patiently to
examine the records containing them, and, as far
as possible, to test their truth by strict observatior
CHAPTER XII.
THE FACULTY OF ABSTRACTION.
The preceding facts, being viewed in connection,
clearly prove that the mind is formed to be in ac-
tion when impressed, and that it does not grow out
of sensations, but is qualified to avail itself of their
help in the acquisition of truth. In proportion as
we become acquainted with moral relations, we
become conscious of responsibility, and then our
individuality takes its highest standing. We per-
ceive that on the direction of our voluntary ener-
gies depends either our weal or our wo; because
we possess the faculty of willing according to our
knowledge, and of fixing our attention on objects
according to the end we would attain. Let us not,
however, venture upon the metaphysical quicksand,
but turn to our common experience of that condi-
tion of the thinking principle in which we abstract
our attention from surrounding objects, in order to
fix it upon ideas existing in our memory or imagi-
nation.
The same being that employs a certain set of
muscles for the accomplishment of its purposes,
also exercises a control over the faculties with
which his mind may be endowed, and to a great
104 MENTAL ABSTRACTION.
extent directs their operations according to the
will, as long as the functions of the body allow.
Probably in a perfect state, as regards physical ac-
commodation, there would be no other limit to the
exercise of this commanding power over the men-
tal faculties than the necessary law of their consti-
tution as mental, so that we might recall at will
whatever passage of past experience we required
to review, and, by the government of ideal associa-
tions, compare fact with fact as might best subserve
the interests of our reason.
This power of reflecting on accumulated im-
pressions in detail appears to be the distinguishing
characteristic of human intelligence. It is pos-
sessed by different individuals in very various de-
grees, and, like all our other endowments, may be
vastly improved by proper employment. In some
persons of acknowledged judgment, from inordinate
exercise or from morbid indisposition, abstraction
nevertheless becomes closely allied to insanity.
In the practice of abstraction, such as it is, the
devotees of Budhism far excel our philosophers.
It is indeed the highest attainment of that super-
stition for persons so far to abstract themselves as
to become unconscious of all external existence.
Thus, we find individuals among them habitually
submitting, with the most profonnd composure, to
inflictions and influences which, to ordinary mor-
tals, would induce the most teirible torment; but
they really do not feel them, because they deter-
mine not to feel.
The Fakirs invert their eyes in silent contem-
plation on the ceiling, then, gradually looking down,
MENTAL ABSTRACTION. 105
they fix both eyes, squinting at the tip of the nose,
until, as they say, the blessings of a new light
beam upon them. The monks of Mount Athos
were accustomed, in a manner equally ridiculous
and with the same success, to hold converse, as
they fancied, with the Deity. Allatius thus de-
scribes the directions for securing the celestial
joys of Omphalopsychian contemplation :—" Press
thy beard upon thy breast, turn thine eyes and
thoughts upon the middle of thine abdomen; per-
severe for days and nights, and thou shalt know
uninterrupted joys, when thy spirit shall have
found out thy heart and illuminated itself." St.
Augustin mentions a priest who could at will fall
into these ecstasies, in which his senses were so
forsaken by his soul as that he did not experience
the pangs of the torture.
A modern astronomer passed a whole night in
the same attitude, observing a phenomenon in the
sky, and on being accosted by some of the family
in the morning, he said, " It must be thus ; I will
go to bed before 'tis late!" He had gazed the
whole night and did not know it. The mathema
tician Viote was sometimes so absorbed by his
calculations that he has been known to pass three
days and three nights without food. It is related
of the Italian poet Marini, that while he was in-
tensely engaged in revising his Adonis, he placed
his leg on the fire, where it burned for some time
without his being aware of it. The power of the
mind in withdrawing itself from sensation can
scarcely be more strongly exemplified.
If a man of the finest faculties yields his reason
106 MENTAL ABSTRACTION.
to the fascinations of sensuality, he soon loses co>
trol over the associations of his mind ; memory and
judgment necessarily become impaired. Even a
brief interruption to the habit of mental withdrawal
from objects of sense renders a return to abstrac-
tion a greater effort, especially if the senses have
in the interval been occupied by objects that
powerfully excite the passions. Hence we see the
necessity of comparative sequestration, and temper-
ate management of the body to the student's suc-
cess, and hence too we learn that diversity of
objects is the natural remedy for morbid abstrac-
tion. The case of Brindley, the celebrated engi-
neer, illustrates these observations. His memory
and abstraction were so great, that although he
could scarcely read or write, he executed the most
elaborate and complex plans as a matter of course,
without committing them to paper. But this
power was so completely disturbed after seeing a
play, that he could not for a long time afterward,
resume his usual pursuits.
That degree of abstractedness which approaches
to dreaming is so essential to powerful intellectual
effort, that Dr. Macnish, in his " Philosophy of
Sleep," includes all the higher exercises of genius
in his idea of dreaming. He says poems are wak-
ing dreams, the aristocratic indulgences of the
intellect, the luxuries of otherwise unemployed
minds; Milton's Paradise Lost is but a sublime
hallucination, Michael Angelo's painting in the
Sistine Chapel are elaborated dreams. According
to this view of the subject the mind is most spirit-
ualized when least awake. But surely such a
MENTAL ABSTRACTION.
107
conclusion is contrary to reason; for who can be-
lieve that voluntary mental abstraction is not
associated with vigilance of spirit, or that the ex
ercise of memory and imagination is not compatible
with sound judgment 1 As well may we say that,
to look steadily over the past, and thence to antici-
pate the future, is but to dream; and carefully to
examine the way we have come and the way we
are going, is to prove ourselves sound asleep.
Reason acquires her proper dominion by abstrac-
tion from the senses, by her use of memory and
imagination, or else there is no reality—no truth
beyond bodily sensation. It is true that the poetic
imagination imbues the commonest circumstances
with a coloring which the vulgar mind regards as ex-
aggerated ; but yet the most successful exercises of
creative genius are remarkable for their philosophic
truthfulness, and the mind which reasons abstract
edly, that is, while voluntarily dissociated from the
circumstances and the senses of the body, is most
conversant with the great principles which connect
all science, all art, all moral, and all physical rela-
tions, with the truth that commends itself equally
to the admiring understanding and to the convicted
conscience as in the sight of God. Those whom
sensualists have deemed madmen and dreamers
have been the enlighteners of their race. They
have ascended in their thoughts out of the sight of
the common down-looking men of this world, and
have held their lamp of life to be relumed at the
6un of another and higher system, which can not
be reached by telescopes, but is realized by faith.
Divine Wisdom has created the mind of man of too
108 MENTAL ABSTRACTION.
expansive a nature to be properly limited by the
atmosphere and attractions of earth, and of too
inquisitive and spiritual a capacity to be quite easy
in believing only in the properties of matter.
Those persons really dream who see no farther
than the surface; who realize nothing beyond the
evidence of the senses, and read not spiritually the
meaning of the grand panorama spread before
their eyes. But those are vividly and vigorously
awake who can withdraw themselves from sounds
and colors, that they may reflect upon treasured
ideas, and interpret the mystery of their existence
by enjoying their spiritual faculties, in intercourse
with other minds and in communion with their
Eternal Parent.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ABSENCE AND ABSTRAC-
TION OF MIND, AND THEIR RELATIONS TO THE
STATE OF THE WILL IN CONNECTION WITH THE
BODY.
It is well to consider the difference between ab-
sence and abstraction of mind. The former is a
mere morbid vacuity, a listless habit, or unmeaning
dreaminess; the latter, a full and intent occupation.
Absence is much known in brown-study, and after
dinner, by the winter fire. It is also common in
church and in school, at lectures, and at lessons.
But mental abstraction is an active and self-absorb-
ing process, in which a powerful and cultivated
will sustains the soul in that intellectual exultation
which constitutes the habit of true genius. Absence
of mind, like sleep, is common to us all, but volun-
tary abstraction, to the extent which is necessary to
great excellence, and for the purpose of enjoying
truth, or realizing fiction, like the clairvoyance of
mesmerism, is a rare endowment, by which the pos-
sessor dwells, as nearly as may be in consistence
with bodily life, in the purer region of the spirit.
But there is danger in all sublunary enjoyments.
Intellectual objects are often pursued to the very
verge of that abyss by which Omnipotence has
K
110 ABSENCE AND ABSTRACTION OF MIND
wisely limited the sphere of human thought, and
thus many perish as regards all the proper uses of
their present being, while distrust and discontent
become stamped upon their features, and incor-
porated with every atom of their substance. By
boldly venturing on speculative self-indulgence, they
madly leap the bounds of rational inquiry, and then
quarrel with their God, because he is pleased to
surround creation with an outer darkness, in which
perverted reason, thus proudly endeavoring to pen-
etrate, becomes involved, perhaps forever. The
history of every age, from that of Eden to the pres-
ent era, proves that the mental faculties, as well as
the grosser appetites to which our fallen nature is
subject, require the dominant control of moral and
religious principles for their safe and hapjry exer-
cise. Presumption plucks only evil from the tree
of knowledge, while indifference lies blighted even
beneath the tree of life.
When a person becomes addicted to the habit
of mental absence, he of course becomes more and
more infirm of purpose; his will has no employment
in the control of his thoughts; his moral as well as
mental constitution is on the extreme edge of dan-
ger ; the total and eternal death of his soul is at
hand. The mind can not be elevated above the
gross air and night-hag hauntings of sensuality, nor
be endowed with the delight of true freedom and
power, unless objects are set before it of a spiritual
and eternally-enlarging nature. If we understand
not our relation to other beings, we lose our inter-
est in them, and soon cease to be attracted toward
them but by sensual impulses. Human affection
IN RELATION TO WILL. Ill
and intellect both fail of their proper ends, unless
reason be employed in consecutive thought, that is,
in comparing facts and deducing truths. The idle
or absent man is one who thinks not for himself as
a part of a grand community of minds. He can
not be said to be educated. If his mind grow, it is
only, like a jungle-creeper, to encumber others.
His busiest thinkings are mere outlines of bodily
sensations. He owns no claims superior to his
own, no active charities dwell in his heart; his
faith, if he have any, is not, like God's gift, large
and beneficent, as all God's gifts are when duly ex-
ercised, but all his affections are contracted and
centered in his little bodily self. He shrinks from
Christianity; its demands are too great for him, as
it requires intellectual agony and the crucifixion of
the lower self for the regeneration in glory of the
higher self. There must be the struggling out of
chaos into new creation by the spirit, but he is sat-
isfied with his own bubble, and gazes only on that
till it bursts. He is miserably weak, because he
has not been obedient to the divine law, which
would have urged him to triumph over circum-
stances and selfishness by acting, like a man, with
a worthy, because a rational, end in view ; for to
seek aright for honor and immortality is to cooperate
with God.
The man of sequestered habits, indeed, rightly
demands our admiration, if, in the voluntary sur
render of delightful sociality, the efforts of his soui
De directed to the contrivance and accomplishment
of means to ameliorate the condition of his fellow-
man ; but the absurd trifler, who prefers absence
112 ABSENCE AND ABSTRACTION OF MIND
of mind from feebleness of will, or because, in his
6ickly pride, he happens to have disgusted himself
with the common business of earth, is unfit for
friendship, and incapable of love—all his ideas of
happiness arise and end in the body, and the prop-
er home of his spirit is the dreary solitude which
selfishness creates; for if the body be not kept
under by proper employment of mind, reason
yields to madness, and the man is driven to the
desert or among the tombs by a legion of familiar
spirits within him, which can neither be bound noi
dispossessed. This is the frequent catastrophe of
refusing to act for eternity, by maintaining domin-
ion over the body.
To the will all knowledge appeals; and to
rectify its wandering tendencies, revealed truth
addresses our reason and demands our faith. Re-
ligion implies the belief of an unapprehended series
of realities, above our present nature, to be hoped
for and to be attained ; because the very announce-
ment of these truths inspires a desire, that, as it
grows, elevates us into the region to which all
true spiritual thought, feeling, and action properly
and alone belong. Let us reflect, then, again and
again, that the power of directing the attention by
a voluntary process of abstraction from those ob-
jects which invite the senses, for the purpose of
regarding ideas in the memoiy, constitutes the dis-
tinctive characteristic of human intellect; and that
the superiority of one mind over another is neces-
sarily determined by the degree in which this gift
is granted and is cultivated. The will makes the
man, and his future history hangs on its present state,
IN RELATION TO WILL. 113
When Newton was asked how he discovered the
system of the universe, he answered, " By thinking
about it." This thinking to an end is the glory
of mind. The power of fixing the intellect on an
object, and bringing all facts within our knowledge
that by possibility relate to that object, to elucidate
it; and also the search after new facts, with a pre-
sentiment of their existence, prove that the human
understanding is constituted in keeping with the
mind which contrived the universe. Perceiving the
reason of one fact, the human intellect correctly
infers the reason why other facts should be found.
We find whatever we reasonably look for. We
naturally expect consistency; for the plan of Om-
nipotence agrees with reason—it is pure reason.
On this ground the man of sagacity sets himself to
think of a subject, with a faith in the powers of his
mind; a conviction that, by continuing to attend
to objects of thought, he will see their connection
and relation. Thus one thought awakes ten thou-
sand ; and these all move, like an army, in obedi-
ence to one will, and to one purpose. By urging
our attention, with strenuous effort, higher and
Higher, we triumph over the distractions of sense ;
and in the calm above, to which the spirit climbs
through clouds and Alpine obstacles, the sky ap-
pears as that of another world.
" As some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep."—H. Vaughan.
Of course the moral perception must precede
and guide the intellectual faculty, or otherwise the
mind becomes meteoric and uncertain; being ex-
8
114 ABSENCE AND ABSTRACTION OF MIND
cited into action, not according to a choice induced
by regard to moral results, but according to acci-
dent, or as objects may happen to be more or less
pleasing or repulsive. In fact, it appears that,
unless the mind be employed in obedient accord-
ance to a higher will than that which belongs to
itself, education or improvement, except in a brutal
or mechanical sense, is not possible. Hence the
necessity of a conscientious regard to the dictates
of divine will, in order to advancement in the un-
derstanding and enjoyment of the highest class of
truths,—those which relate to the proper uses of
the body and to spirit, considered as moral and
religious. Here we see why the wise of former
ages, who possessed a strong reason, although but
a feeble glimmering of the light, which the first
tradition shed on the young world, constantly
looked for a coming revelation concerning future
existence; from which man might more fully leam
his duty toward God, and thus reach further in his
apprehension of immortality, goodness, and truth.
Here, then, we arrive at the point. However in-
geniously men may reason concerning the evolution
of mind from matter, they never can reconcile facts
with their theories, nor in any way account for the
operations of consciousness and volition but by
supposing spiritual existence. It is, however, con-
solatory to discover, that the more we investigate
our mental and physical nature, the more reason
we find to receive, with implicit faith, the knowl-
edge that is brought to our minds in the book
which bears on its pages the demonstration of its
being the revealed information which the Maker
IN RELATION TO WILL.
115
jf man condescends in mercy to communicate to
him, and which, moreover, they who study wisely
find to be exactly of the kind they needed.
Without the individual endowment of will, we
could not feel otherwise than as a part or a prop-
erty of another being, if, indeed, the very idea of
feeling does not imply a distinct personality in that
which feels. But we all act, if not with the con-
viction that we must answer for our deeds to Him
who has so variously endowed us, at least with a
feeling that we must all individually reap the result
of our own conduct, unless Omnipotence interfere
with his own laws. None but a being in some
measure apprehending the mind of its Maker, can
be governed by moral laws, or be made to feel as
we all do, from an intuitive conviction, however
disobeyed or however condemning, that the law,
written on the heart by the finger of God, is holy,
just, and good. This proves that the human mind
acknowledges no lasting relationship with things
that perish ; for a man that has been taught to love
moral truth can not afterward be satisfied with de-
fects : his will and his love must seek for rest in
moral perfection and eternal life, that is, in God.
We may then well conclude this chapter in the lan-
guage of Holy Writ, and say, there is a spirit in
man, and the inspiration of the Almighty givetJi him
understanding. Law and conscience spring not
from the dust.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE ACTIJN OF MIND ON THE NERVOUS ORGANI-
ZATION IN MEMORY, ETC.
The operation of the soul upon the body, and
the incorporeal origin and end of mind, will be fur-
ther rendered manifest by meditating on another
endowment, namely, memory. This, indeed, is
presupposed in the idea of abstraction ; since we
can not contemplate or reflect unless the mind be
previously furnished with objects, or the remem-
bered images of past impressions. We may dwell
the rather on this faculty as it is essential to the
exercise of thought, and must precede reasoning.
Hesiod said, " the nine muses are the daughters of
Mnemosyne;" and rightly does he thus determine,
since without memory they never could have ex-
isted, for every production of human intellect has
its origin in this faculty; hence the mind of the ra-
tional being is first exercised in examining objects
and enjoying sensations, since the remembrance of
these constitute the groundwork of reflection and
of forethought. The infant's reason requires only
familiarity with facts, and the opportunity of com-
paring them with each other, to become manifest
and perfect. Thus it happens that savage tribes,
ACTION OF MIND ON NERVOUS ORGANIZATION. 117
and persons wholly without education, exhibit so
many of the characteristics of childhood.
It is not my purpose to investigate this faculty in
philosophical order, but to relate certain facts in
connection with its exercise, which may assist us
in deducing further inferences concerning the inde-
pendence and management of the thinking princi-
ple. Attention and association are generally deem-
ed essential to the memory, but experience certainly
proves that its extent or capacity does not entirely
depend on what is commonly understood by atten-
tion and association. At least we find that, in many
instances, we can not detect the association ; nor
does it often appear that facility of recollection is in
proportion to the effort to attend and to retain, but
rather to the suitability of the subject to the men-
tal character and habit of the individual.
A gentleman engaged in a banking establishment
made an error in his accounts, and, after an inter-
val of several months, spent days and nights in vain
endeavors to discover where the mistake lay. At
length, worn out by fatigue, he went to bed, and in
a dream recollected all the circumstances that gave
rise to the error. He remembered that on a cer-
tain day several persons were waiting in the bank,
when one individual, who was a most annoying
stammerer, became so excessively impatient and
noisy that, to get rid of him, his money was paid
before his turn, and the entrance of this 6um was
neglected, and thus arose the deficiency in the ac-
count. Now here we have an instance of memory
without association ; because the impression was
one of which there was no consciousness at the time
L18 THE ACTION OF MIND ON
when it occurred; for the fact on which the case
rested was not his having paid the money, but his
having neglected to insert the payment.
Our memory, as available for the common pur-
poses of intelligence, appears to be in proportion to
the interest we take in any subject by nature, habit,
or education. We remember most distinctly, ac-
cording to the common law of association, those
things which relate to our chosen pursuits, or which
impress us through our keenest and most engross-
ing affections. We recall even the sufferings of
the body in connection with some state of our pas-
sions which those sufferings excited. Hence the
injurious effect of tyrannical punishments on the
youthful mind. Such arbitrary inflictions, not being
accompanied with a moral persuasion of propriety
and kind intention, engender slavish fear and con-
tempt. The despotic might that wounds the body
merely to enforce its will is necessarily despised;
and while the body suffers under it, terror and re-
venge are the only passions excited; for gentleness
and love alone produce repentance. The passions,
excited by the punishment, recur on the remem-
brance of the pain endured; and thus a repetition
of such punishment makes either a coward or a vil-
lain, or more probably both; for fear and hatred
become the habit of every mind that suffers without
the conviction that justice and love are one.
There can be no doubt that ordinarily we best
remember what most strongly affects us, either
agreeably or otherwise. But this faculty is so
variously modified in different individuals, that the
effort or the enjoyment which some find necessary
THE NERVOUS ORGANIZATION. 119
to fix objects upon the mind, others feel to be only
impediments to the process. The late Dr. Leyden,
who could repeat, verbatim, a long act of parlia-
ment after having once read it, found this kind of
memory an inconvenience rather than an advan-
tage, because he could never recollect any particu-
lar point in the act without repeating to himself all
that preceded the part he required.
The memory of reasoning is strong in propor-
tion to the distinctness of apprehension and the
finking together of accordant ideas. We hold
most firmly what we grasp most completely. The
memory of sensation is generally proportioned to
the acuteness of sensation; but a rapid succession
of ideas is constantly obliterating previous impres-
sions, by stamping new ones. Yet it appears, from
facts, that the impressions always remain distinct
in the mind, and require only a proper condition
to be so perceived and read off in the order in which
they were received. The manner also in which
the acquisition is made greatly influences the
power of retention and of reproduction. Thus,
under the urgency of a pressing occasion, a cele-
brated actor prepared himself for a new, long, and
difficult part in a surprisingly short space of time.
He performed it with perfect accuracy; but the
performance was no sooner over than every word
ivas forgotten—at least no effort could recall them,
although doubtless they were retained, and would
return to the perception of the mind under favor
able circumstances.
But it should be understood that there are sev-
eral leading phenomena referable to the head o^
120 THE ACTION OF MIND ON
memory. There is the simple latent retention of
whatever impression on the senses conveys to the
mind, which constitutes memory strictly speaking
There is recollection, or the voluntary reproduc
tion of those impressions ; and there is conceptioi
such as the painter or the poet evinces, who accu
rately and vividly delineates past occurrences,
absent friends, and remembered scenes, with the
force of present reality. The performer, before
mentioned, doubtless possessed the memory of tho
part he acted, although he could never afterward
recall it. He recollected other characters well,
because they were deliberately acquired. Tho
power of memory in connection with association
appears to be influenced by the direction and
intensity of the will, that is to the degree and kind
of attention required : perhaps the state of our af-
fections has more to do with this faculty than with
any other. Recollection is of vast importance to
our common intercourse; but abstract memory is
probably more important to the actual education
of the soul; since the memory, which is altogether
latent and concealed under one set of circumstan-
ces, becomes active and useful under another.
Like certain pictures, they appear and disappear
according to the direction of the light.
The reproduction of impressions in that exercise
or condition of mind called conception affords very
striking evidence that ideas once received are, as it
were, stereotyped on the memory. They are not
painted in fading colors, but seem only to require
a certain disengagedness of the attention from
other objects to be again perceived as vividly as
- THE NERVOUS ORGANIZATION. 121
ever. Thus we see the reason why seclusion and
mental abstraction are so naturally sought, when
we wish to recall the past, or studiously to review
a subject with which we have been familiar. By
voluntary effort we put ourselves into the most
favorable position for the retrospect; for we are
endowed with a consciousness that the images and
perceptions at any time experienced still belong to
us, and may again be felt, if the impressions of the
present could but be removed from before the eye
of mind. The obstacles to this spiritual sight are
often, as it were, accidentally dissipated, and the
past, assumes all its pristine reality—a beautiful
example of which occurs in the life of Niebuhr,
the celebrated Danish traveler : " When old, blind,
and so infirm, that he was able only to be carried
from his bed to his chair, he used to describe to
his friends the scenes which he had visited in his
early days with wonderful minuteness and vivacity.
When they expressed their astonishment, he told
them that as he lay in bed, all visible objects being
shut out, the pictures of what he had seen in the
East continually floated before his mind's eye, so
that it was no wonder he could speak to them as
if he had seen them yesterday. With like vivid-
ness the deep intense sky of Asia, with its brilliant
and twinkling host of stars, which he had so often
gazed at by night, or its lofty vault of blue by day,
was reflected in the hours of stillness and darkness
on his inmost soul."*
This may perhaps be considered as an example
of the highest degree of healthy conception; that
* Dr. Abercrombie.
L
122 THE ACTION OF MIND ON
is, the voluntary abstraction of the mind allowing
the past to appear in its original order and clear-
ness. That remarkable phenomenon which drown-
ing persons and others on the verge of death have
often been known to experience, belongs to the
same property of the soul, for they have described
the state of their memories under these mysterious
circumstances, as representing the history of their
lives, at once and altogether, like a vast tableau
vivant. But, probably, an approach to this sight
of our realized existence, more or less confused
with our consciousness of the present, is essential
to the exercise of memory : a certain state of
mind associates past ideas with certain sights and
sounds, and we mentally again perceive the past
as if present.
Something like this leads to that state on which
depends the theory of apparitions or spectral illu-
sions, which seem to be only a more disjointed
attention to reality or obliviousness of the present;
thus allowing former impressions to reappear as
they occur in dreaming, the senses not being in a
state of sufficient activity to prevent ideas from
infringing on them.
The following is another illustration of concep-
tion, almost as striking as the foregoing:—" In the
church of St. Peter, in Cologne, the altar-piece is
a large and valuable picture of Rubens, represent-
ing the martyrdom of the Apostle. This picture
having been carried away by the French, in 1805,
to the great regret of its inhabitants, a painter of
that city undertook to make a copy of it from rec-
ollection, and succeeded in doing so in 6uch a
THE NERVOUS ORGANIZATION. 123
manner that the most delicate tints of the original
are preserved with the most minute accuracy.
The original painting has now been restored; but
the copy is preserved along with it, and even when
they are rigidly compared, it is scarcely possible
to distinguish the one from the other."
The images of objects seem to be actually re-
produced before the eye of the mind by a volun-
tary effort, in every exercise of recollection; and
what is very surprising, the images thus repro-
duced by the will sometimes continue to obtrude
themselves, even on the bodily sense, when the
mind would fain dismiss them, so as to assume
that real appearance of the object thought of,
which induces weak-minded persons to think that
they have seen supernatural apparitions. Thus a
gentleman, mentioned by Dr. Hibbert, having been
told of the sudden death of a friend, saw him dis-
tinctly when he walked out in the evening. " He
was not in his usual dress, but in a coat of a differ-
ent color, which he had left off wearing for some
months. I could even remark a figured vest which
he had worn about the same time, also a colored
handkerchief around his neck, in which I had
used to see him in the morning."
The power of the mind to imbody whatever it
strongly conceives is strikingly demonstrated in
those cases in which a number of persons have
imagined themselves to have seen the same appa-
rition. Thus a whole ship's crew were thrown
into consternation by the ghost of the cook, who
had died a few days before. He was distinctly seen
by them all, walking on the water, with a peculiar
124 THE ACTION OF MIND ON
gait by which he was distinguished, one of his lwga
being shorter than the other. The cook, so plainly
recognized, was only a piece of old wreck. In
such instances, which are common, it is manifest
that the mind so impresses the sense of sight with
past realities, that it perceives only what imagina-
tion presents.
" Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy ;
Or, in the night imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear."—Shakspeare.
Now it is clear, Hfrom every example of recol-
lection, that ideas do not affix themselves in any
structure of the body, for every atom of it is suc-
cessively removed in the processes of vital action.
A man's body does not continue to exist of the
same identical materials ; therefore it follows, as
an inevitable conclusion, that memory is not a
record written there ; the store of ideas must be-
long to an independent, unchanging being; for
whenever they are reproduced they are found un-
altered, and must therefore have existed in that
which does not change, namely, the undecaying soul.
Those things which belong to our moral being
most powerfully affect our minds, and most strongly
cleave even to our ordinary memory ; and if it were
not so, religious truth could not regenerate the
world. Mr. Moffat, the missionary, says, that
when he had concluded a long sermon, to a great
number of African savages, his hearers divided
into companies, to talk the subject over. " While
thus engaged, my attention was arrested by a sim-
THE NERVOUS ORGANIZATION. 125
p e-looking young man, at a short distance. The
person referred to was holding forth, with great
animation, to a number of people, who were all
attention. On approaching, I found, to my sur-
prise, that he was preaching my sermon over
again, with uncommon precision and with great
solemnity, imitating, as nearly as he could, the
gestures of the original. A greater contrast could
scarcely be conceived, than the fantastic figure
and the solemnity of his language—his subject
being eternity, while he evidently felt what he
spoke. Not wishing to disturb him, I allowed
him to finish the recital, and seeing him soon
after, told him that he could do what I was sure
I could not,—that was, preach again the same
sermon verbatim. He did not appear vain of his
superior memory : ' When I hear any thing great,'
he said, touching his forehead with his finger, ' it
remains there.' "
This anecdote affords us an interesting evidence
that memory, in connection with the intuitive ap-
preciation of vast truths, is characteristic of savage
as well as civilized man; in short, it shows that
the mind was created for truth, and to be governed
by it. The rapid and immense improvement in
the social and religious condition of these and
other degraded tribes of mankind, under the per-
suasive operation of doctrines calculated to direct
the will, especially by their hold upon the memory,
and thence to inspire the conduct with command-
ing and ennobling motives, is a beautiful fact; at
once proving the fitness of the Christian doctrines
for the moral constitution of man, and the unreason
126 THE ACTION OF MIND ON
ableness of that philosophy which, in spite of the
world's experience, attempts to teach us that the
brain of a man must be remodeled before he can
be mentally regenerated. If this be true, what
a sudden development of new organs or new ac-
tivities of brain must have happened in the South
Sea Islands, and what a new state of cranium
must the sensual atheist experience, who, by a
flash of thought, is stiuck from his elevation of
self-conceit and self-adoration into an humble con-
viction of dependence on his God and Savior !
Man's spiritual nature is rooted in his knowl-
edge or memory, and as he believes, so will he
act; as he receives truth, so is he influenced; and
truth penetrates like the sword of the Spirit, open-
ing every mind that it strikes for the reception of a
world of new realities. Let the will be arrested,
and the attention fixed to look upon the Gospel,
and its grandeur becomes manifest and influential.
As, when a man like Newton, having the idea of
gravitation forced upon his attention, gradually be-
holds the universe hanging together and in motion
thereby, and makes all his calculations in keeping
with that knowledge; so the Christian sees in one
grand truth the harmonizing power of all worlds,
and calculates only on the force of love as the gov-
erning principle of Heaven.
A man never forgets, however he may neglect,
the truth which he has willingly admitted to his
mind as a ruling principle—that is, a truth com-
mended to his conscience. As the poor African
said, " When I hear any thing great it remains;"
so whatever we feel to be morally tnie will cleave
THE NERVOUS ORGANIZATION. 127
either to torment or to delight us, according to
its nature, and according to our felt obedience to
the master truths—the demands of God upon our
being.
Memory, then, is not the spontaneous action of
an apparatus, like Babbage's calculating machine,
with figures that revolve in endless combination.
It is a state of mind. Mind produces it. Even
those figures, thus revolving and combining, ex-
isted in all their power of infinite reproduction in
the mind that conceived the method of thus evolv-
ing " numbers beyond number numberless," from
the transportations and combinations of only nine
remembered units. Thus, perhaps, from the vast
but limited multitude of ideas derived from the
impressions in time, eternity may be filled with
thoughts. The order and happiness resulting from
their endless multiplication will depend on the few
regulating principles which God has given to us in
his law, and if this continue to be broken, the con-
fusion and misery of our spirits will be as endless
as our capacity of thinking.
CHAPTER XV.
THE CONNECTION OF MEMORY WITH THE HABIT AN3
CONDITION OF THE BRAIN,. AND THE USE OF TH1
BODY.
Intimacy with facts and things in their mutual
influence on each other constitutes our individual
world of knowledge, and this acquaintance with
circumstances or things remains in our minds with-
out a necessary connection with language. Ideas
must generally be presented by words from one
mind to another in this state of being; but, that
ideas once produced exist in the mind, independ-
ently of their conventional associates, is testified by
a great variety of facts, especially in the history of
disease, as it affects the manifestation of mind; and
this it does, more or less, in every instance, as we
have already seen; because what is called health
is nothing more than the state of body best adapted
for the exercise and training of the soul in its inter-
course with the material world. Memory, like all
other mental manifestation, is suspended by press-
ure on the brain, and in fact by any thing which
powerfully disturbs its functions; hence it is pre-
sumed by some physiologists that memory has no
existen"*> but as a function of the brain, and many
CONNECTION OF MEMORY WITH THE BRAIN. 129
wonderful cases of recovery from cerebral injury,
with restoration of this faculty, are referred to in
proof that the brain is the sole cause of remem-
brance. The brain of course is necessaiy to con-
scious existence, such as we experience, and there-
fore of course it is essential to memoiy in connec-
tion with the active manifestation of this life; but
yet the very facts which are quoted as evidences
that memory is a function of the brain, also afford
us positive proof that it is something more.
I knew an intelligent lady, who suddenly lost all
association between ideas and language. She be-
came as completely destitute of speech as a new-
born infant. Under medical treatment, however,
she gradually recovered; she again learned to
speak, read, and write, just as a child learns, until
some months after the attack, when her former in-
formation and faculty rapidly returned. She told
me that her remembrance of facts was as clear as
ever during this speechless state—all she had lost
was language. Even her recollection of music wras
perfect, and she performed elaborate pieces witr
her accustomed skill, although not a single idea in
her mind could present itself in words. She soon
afterward died suddenly of apoplexy, and the cause
of the impediment was then proved to exist in dis-
ease of the brain.
A degree of this disorder occurs when the brain
tias suffered from fatigue, as in the case of Spald-
sig, a celebrated scholar in Germany, who being
called on to write after great exertion and distrac-
tion of mind, found himself incapable of proceeding
.orrectly beyond the first two words. The char
9
130 CONNECTION or MEMORY WITH THE
acters he continued to make were not what he
meant, but he knew not where the fault lay. His
speech failed in the same manner; he spoke other
words than he intended, although he knew every
thing around him, and his senses continued perfect.
On resting and refreshing his nervous system tho
confusion was removed.
This loss of association between words and ideas
is often observed in paralytics. It is probable that
persons laboring under such malady are always
conscious that the sounds they utter are unintelli-
gible to those whom they address, and their dis-
tress is greatly aggravated by the fact. This was
the case with the lady just mentioned. Patients
are rarely able to give us a distinct account of their
sensations under such circumstances. Dr. Holland,
however, also relates an instance to the point, in
which loss of memory and articulation of words
followed an accident in an aged gentleman. " He
could not remember the names of his servants;
nor, when wishing to express his wants to them,
could he find right words to do so. He was con-
scious of uttering unmeaning sounds, and reasoned
on the singularity at the time, as he afterward
stated." The organs influenced by the will are
more or less disordered when the power of recol-
lection is morbidly defective, as in palsy. This dis-
ease is accompanied by an unsteadiness and tremor,
or rigidity of the muscles, as well as an incapacity
of fixing the attention. There is some interference
with the muscular sense, by which we prepare our-
selves for the use of our other senses.
Here it may not be inappropriate to observe
HABIT AND CONDITION OF THE BRAIN. 131
the connection between attention, memory, and
muscular action. All the voluntary activities of
our bodies are modified by the state of our memo-
ries in relation to our senses, more particularly
to the muscular sense, or that feeling by which
we regulate our movements in regard to gravita-
tion and avoid danger. Although we seem not
to attend to our ordinary muscular actions, yet
we really do attend to them, and in fact exercise a
power of comparison in every intentional move-
ment. We walk according to our experience in
the use of our legs and feet, and we handle ob-
jects as we have before felt. We balance our
muscles instinctively in every effort, according to
the necessity which former circumstances may
have suggested. We take not a cup in our hand
without previously preparing ourselves, and the
will braces the muscles for the purpose, in keep-
ing with our preconceived notion of the weight
of the body to be lifted. Let a person, unac-
quainted with its weight, attempt to take up a cup
of mercury, and he will probably spill its contents.
Other complicated and rapid movements of the
hand, in the delicate execution of works of art and
manufacture, require an apt and ready memory,
as well as a well-trained and active hand. An
impairment of memory destroys the steady quick-
ness that is required. We find that, in the cotton
mills, the activities of the brain are tried to such
a degree by steam and ingenuity, that certain
movements of the machinery can only be followed
by persons possessed of quick memory and cor-
responding nervous energy; and hence that these
132 CONNECTION OF MEMORY WITH THE
parts of the work can only be accomplished 01
tolerated by individuals from puberty to manhood;
because, at that period alone is the association be
tween memory and action sufficiently electric to
suit the market.
Mental education improves the grace and ex-
pressiveness of the body, at least of the features,
to so great an extent as to be commonly acknowl-
edged as a powerful cause of the influence which
men maintain over each other. The specific dis-
tinction between an educated and an uneducated
man is in the power of reflection ; the memory of
the former having been trained, that of the latter
being left wild. This training of memory affects
the whole tone, character, and bodily deportment
of a man. As a voluntary effort of memory is
attended by a peculiar fixedness of the body, and
a steadiness of the senses, which are necessary to
preserve the attention to associated ideas, tho
habit of this effort imparts a deliberative expres-
sion to the features, and causes even a man's mus-
cular movements to partake of the more measured
and sedate tendency of his mind. Hence also it
may fairly be concluded, that one who has been
accustomed rationally to apply this faculty, is bet-
ter qualified to control his instincts, to govern his
passions, and to regulate all those impulses which
spring immediately from his physical constitution.
Hence, too, natural philosophers, men who remem-
ber, collect, and think on facts, are less disposed
(o insanity than are poets and persons who de-
light in imagination without an orderly and proper
cultivation of memory. In short, proper applica-
HABIT AND CONDITION OF THE BRAIN. 133
tion of this endowment is the foundation of physi-
cal as well as mental and moral improvement.
Those nations have the best formed heads who
have been possessed of the best histories or tradi-
tions, and who have been called to the highest
exercise of memory; for in this consists the prin-
cipal means of advancing the arts of civilization
and of maintaining the dominion of truth and
religion both over mind and body. The very act
of acquiring, recording, or recollecting true knowl-
ed ge is attended by a state of brain and a sobriety
of manner which tend at once to imbody, imper-
sonate, and fix its advantages in the individual so
employed, and to perpetuate the benefit in his off-
spring. If therefore the increase of schools did
nothing more than demand a general employment
of youthful memory in acquiring truth, it would
accomplish immense good, for this is always asso-
ciated more or less with control of the body, and it
will moreover be the groundwork of right reason
when coming circumstances shall require severer
exercise of intellect.
M
CHAPTER XVI.
THE INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT ON THE CHARAC-
TER OF THE MEMORY.
It is remarkable that persons endowed with an
energetic and busy imagination have been fre-
quently most defective as regards verbal memory,
at least in the power of recollecting words. Thus
Rousseau and Coleridge always found it difficult
to remember even a few verses, although composed
by themselves. The reason seems to be, that their
minds quickly caught hold of the ideas expressed,
and at once associated them with others, much in
the same manner that we find delirious persons
do under certain conditions of the nervous system;
the powers of perception being entire, but the at-
tention being occupied by mental objects rather
than sensible ones, as already described under the
head of abstraction. The nervous system of such
persons is employed in other relations than those
best adapted to the use of memory.
The celebrated Porson was a man of a contrary
stamp. Recollection was the habit of his mind,
and his life was a mixed commentary on profane
and sacred learning, and his genius was like a
phosphorescence on the graves of the dead. It
INFLUENCE OF HABTT ON MEMORY. 135
is said of him that nothing came amiss to his mem-
ory. " He would set a child right in his two-
penny fable-book, repeat the whole of the moral
tales of the Dean of Badajoz, a page of Athenaeus
on cups, or of Eustathius on Homer. He could
bring to bear at once on any question every pass-
age from the whole range of Greek literature
that could elucidate it; and approximate on the
instant the slightest coincidence in thought or ex-
pression ; and the accuracy was quite as surprising
as the extent of his recollection." This facility
was the result of early and continued habit.
Dr. Arnold had a remarkable memory. He
quoted from Dr. Priestley's Lectures on History,
when in the professor's chair at Oxford, from the
recollection of what he had only read when no
more than eight years of age. His memory ex-
tended to the exact state of the weather on par-
ticular days, or the exact words and position of
passages which he had not seen for twenty years.
This faculty was more particularly acute on sub-
jects of history and geography, from the early
habit of exercising it on these subjects; having
been taught to go accurately through the stories
of the pictures and portraits of the successive
English reigns before he was eight years old, and
being at that age accustomed to recognize at a
glance the different counties of a dissected map of
England.
The power of memory, provided the brain be
in a healthy state, will be proportioned to the
determination with which an individual attends to
the subject he would remember; that is, in pro-
136 INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT ON
portion to the motive. If fancy interfere, memory
is disturbed. This strength of purpose has always
characterized those who have been celebrated for
power of memory, and this will of course mainly
arise from the feeling of importance which habit
or teaching may attach to the object in view.
Thus Cyrus is said to have learned the name of
every soldier in his army, that he might be able to
command them the better; and Mithridates, for
the same reason, became acquainted with the lan-
guages of the twenty-two nations serving under
his banners. It is stated by Eusebius that Esdras
restored the sacred Hebrew Volumes by memory,
when they had been destroyed by the Chaldeans.
St. Anthony, the Egyptian hermit, could not read,
but knew all the Scriptures by heart from having
heard them. Pope Clement V. impaired his mem-
ory from a fall on the head, but by dint of appli-
cation he recovered its powers so completely, that
Petrarch informs us that he never forgot any thing
that he had once perused.
Are we to conclude that this principle of the
mind assumes varieties of manifestation, according
to the facility which different conformations of brain
or sense afford; or are we to infer that mind is
created with diversified degrees and kinds of this
capacity 1 Facts point to the conclusion that the
manifestation of memory is modified by the state
of the nervous system in relation to the power of
attending. Hence memory is matured by habit;
for, in order to a perfect reminiscence, the mind
must act upon the nervous organization in such a
manner as to excite in it a sense of the images re-
THE CHARACTER OF THE MEMORY. 137
called. This is sometimes so powerfully excited,
that we unintentionally imitate in our action that
which we would describe. Circumstantial signs
are associated in our ideas, and they often pro-
duce the effect, not only in our minds, but in our
features. Thus Descartes, being fondly in love
with a girl who squinted, never spoke of her with-
out squinting.
If the brain be occupied or excited by disease,
or distracted by mental perturbation, the will has
but little power in directing the attention, either
to the recollection of past impressions or to the
observation of things present. A man is then said
to be discomposed ; the healthy order of his thoughts
is broken, his memory is confused, his attention dis-
turbed.
The habit of using the mind in any particular
direction, or on any class of objects, gives a prom-
inence and readiness to that part of the nervous
system which is called into exercise, and therefore
the memory employed in daily reasoning is facile,
in proportion to habit, as long as we continue in
health. The habit of mind, then, actually alters
the condition and power of the instruments of
mental manifestation, and, within certain limits
qualifies it for use, according to the extent and
kind of demand made upon it; thus proving,
beyond controversy, that ordinary memory de-
pends on mental determination in the use of a
healthy organization. The power itself originates
in that which attends, intends, wills, and not in
that which is acted on by the will. Seeing, then,
that mental confusion arises from inaptitude of
M*
138 INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT ON
the brain, as relates to the senses under the action
of the will, we may fairly conclude that when the
will shall act only in that which retains ideas, and
deals with pure memory, there will be no confusion,
but that all experienced facts will stand clearly in
their exact order, as originally presented. As we
advance in this subject we shall discover further
reason for this conclusion.
However excellent the development of a man's
brain may be, he will be incapable of exercising
his faculties to good purpose unless he is ha-
bituated to their control under the excitement of
moral motives. The brain does not respond to
the demands of reason but by degrees. It is not
brought into a state suitable to the proper mani-
festation of our faculties but by long habits. In
fact the brain is not fully developed, as the instru-
ment or medium of intellect, unless the mind have
been regularly educated and drawn out by appro-
priate employment during the period of its growth.
The will, in exercising attention while acquiring
knowledge and in reflection, that is, in using
memory, really produces such a change in the
size and order of the nervous fibrils of the brain,
as to render it better and better adapted for use,
as long as the laws of its formation allow or until
disease interfere. We find then, instead of mind
and memory resulting from brain, that brain, as
far as it has relation to the mind, is developed and
regulated in subserviency to the will; for, how-
ever good the natural formation of a child's brain
may be, he must grow up an idiot if his will be not
called into action by moral influences; that is, by
THE CHARACTER OF THE MEMORY. 139
synrpathy with other spirits. The histories of Cas-
par Hauser, Peter the Wild Boy, and others, eluci-
date this subject and confirm this conclusion.
The desperate shifts to which materialists are
driven to avoid an acknowledgment of spiritual
existence, appears most palpably in their endeav-
ors, physiologically, to account for memory. They
say, sensation is the only source of faculty. But
then they fail to show what experiences sensa-
tion. They add, sensation would be sterile, un-
productive of will and memory, if it did not remain
impressed on the tissue of the brain, so as to be
found after many years. All we see, hear, feel,
taste, conceive,—is, say they, incorporated and
constitutes part and parcel of our brains. What
" a book and volume" a well-stored brain must be,
all alive with indelible sensations ! This theory,
like many others, is indebted to poetry rather than
lo"ic, and it certainly was stolen from Shakspeare,
who makes Hamlet thus philosophically promise
the ghost of his royal father :—
" Yea, from the table of my memory
['11 wipe away all trivial, fond records,
All saws of books, all forms of pleasures past,
That youth and observation copied there ;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter."
But it is surmised that the great dramatist in-
tended, in the character of Hamlet, to represent a
philosophical, poetical madman; and this theory
of memory certainly appears well to become such
a character; especially as he, at the same time,
attributes a supremacy to the individual's will
140 INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT ON
which it docs not and can not possess; for how-
ever we may desire it, to wipe away the record,
however fond or trivial, is impossible, although we
may indeed become for a time unconscious of its
existence by a full occupation of the mind on now
objects of thought.
It must, however, be acknowledged, that the
material hypothesis of memory has been presented
in so beautiful a manner as to fascinate, if not to
satisfy, the understanding. We need not be sur-
prised at the almost infinite ideas which may be
interwoven into the fibrils of the brain, since micro-
scopic observers assure us that the smallest visible
point of its substance is not more than the l-8000th
of an inch in diameter; it is therefore estimated
that eight thousand ideas may be represented on
every square inch of the thinking nerve-matter;
so that, considering the large surface of such mat-
ter in man, he may be supposed in this manner
capable of receiving some millions of simple ideas
or impressions. It seems vain to say, as do some
advocates of this notion, that such broad methods
of accounting for ideas do not favor materialism.
Surely, if ideas exist only in the brain and spinal
marrow, to die is to lose them. But let us in-
quire what is an idea 1 It is a mind-act, which can
not be but in a conscious being. Something more
than atoms must be required for the production
and recognition of our mental impressions ; some-
thing consenting—beside brain. As images on
the retina are not ideas until a man attend to
them—for he does not see them while his mind is
intently engaged about other things—so whatever
THE CHARACTER OF THE MEMORY. 141
may exist actively or passively in the brain, affects
not the consciousness till the mind is in corre-
spondence with it. Conceive a man, say Milton,
using imagination, memory, judgment, day after
day, until the body is no longer convenient. He
chooees, observe, to "justify the ways of God to
man," but he does not meditate on knowledge
really belonging to himself, but on the play of
nerve-fibrils, which put him in mind of the past
and present; for they in fact contain all his ideas,
all his works, his experience, emotions, affections,
thoughts. Now, if such be true, what was Milton
when his body died % Is there no answer 1 Yes !
As that immortal spirit, when present in a com-
modious body saw the " Paradise Lost" in the
light which shone amid his darkness, so that same
spirit, endowed with larger love and liberty and
intellect, walks with God in the " Paradise Re-
gained." His knowledge and. inwrought history
did not perish in the grave.
Supposing that sensation and ideas were capable
of being engraved, or cast, or daguercotyped on
the leaves of the brain, the question still returns,
what perceives them there'? The only possible
answer is supplied in the Sacred Scripture : " No
man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of
man which is in him." The recurrence of the
same ideas is only the recurrence of the same state
in that which thinks ; but of course the same state
in ordinary manifestation implies the return of simi-
lar relations with regard to objects of attention. To
experience exactly the same state of mind, we must
exactly recall the past impressions in their original
142 INFLUENCE OF HABIT ON MEMORY,
order, or we must be placed again in precisely the
same circumstances in regard to the brain and the
senses. A case will illustrate this observation. It
may be found at full in the " Assembly Missionary
Magazine." The Reverend William Tennant,
while conversing in Latin with his brother, fainted
and apparently died. His friends were invited to
his funeral; but his physician, examining the body,
thought he perceived signs of life : he remained in
this state of suspended animation for three days
longer, when his family again assembled to the
funeral, and, while they were all sitting around
him, he gave a heavy groan, and was gradually re-
stored. Some time after his resuscitation he ob-
served his sister reading: he asked what she had
in her hand. She answered " a Bible:" he re-
plied, " what is a Bible 1" He was found to be
totally ignorant of every transaction of his past life.
He was slowly taught again to read and write, and
afterward began to learn Latin under the tuition
of his brother. One day while he was reciting a
lesson from " Cornelius Nepos," he suddenly felt a
shock in his head. He could then speak the Latin
fluently as before his illness, and his memory was in
all respects completely restored. His brain was no
longer so diseased or disordered in its circulation
as to prevent his mind from returning to its former
relations. Objects again excited their appropriate
associations with recorded ideas, and he recollected
what he previously knew; his will was as capable
of acting on his brain as it did when acquiring Latin
at first—his nervous system was again obedient.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CONNECTION OF MEMORY WITH DOUBLE
CONSCIOUSNESS.
Although memory is evinced in very different
degrees, and under various modifications in differ-
ent individuals, we must not conclude that this en-
dowment is essentially diversified in its nature and
extent, as it appears to be. Many facts tend to
prove that persons may possess large stores of re-
corded impressions without being aware of it.
Perhaps every image or idea received through the
senses is really so preserved that, under circum-
stances yet to come, they may each and every one
be perceived and recognized in their proper con-
nection with each other, so as to enable the cor-
rected and unclouded reason hereafter to read the
wisdom and providence of God as permanently
written in the minutest circumstances of each one's
experience, to discern distinctly the eternal contra-
riety between truth and falsehood, good and evil;
to trace their operation on the mind, to perceive
how the human will is rendered responsible by
knowledge, and how hopes and efforts are excited
by mental associations, and, consequently, how just
and beautiful is the royal law of loving our neigh-
144 THE CONNECTION OF MEMORY
bor as ourselves. In short, we may hereafter be
able to understand the force of circumstances in
the development of character, the full weight of
education and accountableness, and from the intelli-
gence growing out of the feeling and reflection of
the past, to converse without restraint with higher
or more advanced intelligences, and to exercise
our faculties aright in new and loftier regions where
we shall learn that our living spirits have been ex-
posed in this world of trial and darkness to nothing
accidental, to nothing trivial; but that other spirits
have been permitted to be busy with our sensations
and ideas for specific purposes of temptation, in
just relation to our own moral state, for spiritual
exaltation, or even, may we not say, for the more
mysterious abandonment of the soul to evil; there-
by the better to exhibit the awful sublimity of di-
vine government, which will ultimately subdue to
the vengeance of love the most opposing elements,
and render darkness itself the medium of glory.
We know that persons may, during sleep and
in certain conditions of disease, exercise a memory
of which they are wholly unconscious in their
waking hours, or while enjoying ordinary health ;
in short, a memory which has no purpose in con-
nection with present existence.
There is an illustrative case related by Dr. Dyce,
of Aberdeen. The patient was an ignorant servant
girl, and the affection began with fits of sleepiness,
which came suddenly upon her. After these
paroxysms had been frequently renewed, she
began to talk a great deal during their continuance,
without being sensible of any thing that was passing
WITn DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 145
about her. In this state she on one occasion dis-
tinctly repeated the baptismal service of the Church
of England, and concluded with an extemporary
prayer. In her case a circumstance was remarked,
which in other instances has also been observed,
namely, that she perfectly recollected during the
paroxysm what took place in former paroxysms,
though she had no remembrance of it during the
intervals. This is exactly what occurs in many
cases of insanity and delirium. I have frequently
conversed with persons under both forms of disor-
der, during fits of excitement, and have found them
perfectly at home concerning fancies and impres-
sions which passed before their minds while con-
versing with me in previous paroxysms; but, in
their lucid periods, their whole existence during
the fits was quite a blank to them.
Dr. Pritchard mentions a lady who was liable
to sudden attacks of delirium. They often com-
menced while she was engaged in interesting con-
versation ; and on such occasions it happened that,
on her recovery from the state of delirium, she in-
stantly recurred to the conversation she was engag-
ed in at the time of the attack. To such a degree
was this carried on, that she could even complete
an unfinished sentence. During one paroxysm she
would pursue the train of ideas which had occu-
pied her mind in a former fit.
The human spirit uses the brain as long as this
organ is fit for its purposes, and therefore conscious
associated memory is the result of mental action
on the brain ; and whenever the thinking principle
is remembering and directed to the body and its
10 N
146 THE CONNECTION OF MEMORY
senses, there is probably a reproduction of that
very state of nerve or of brain which accompanied
the first impression of each remembered idea ; and,
probably, the brain being again put in the same
condition, or nearly so, by any cause, as for instance
by a stimulus, would facilitate the act of the mind
in recalling any impression which had occurred in
a similar state of brain; because a return of this
state is necessary while mind is acting with tho
senses.
Dr. Abercrombie relates the following case, on
the authority of a respectable clergyman of the
Church of England, which aptly illustrates this
point. A young woman of the lower rank, aged
nineteen, became insane. She was gentle, and ap-
plied herself eagerly to various operations. Before
her insanity, she had learned to read and form a few
letters, but during her insanity she taught herself
to write perfectly, though all attempts to teach her
had failed, as she could not attend. She had in-
tervals of reason, which frequently continued for
three weeks or longer, during which she could
neither write nor read; but immediately on the
return of her insanity, she recovered her power of
writing and reading perfectly.
Other cases might be related, on the best autho
rity, in which individuals have, during one state,
retained all their original knowledge, but during
the other state, that only which had been acquired
after the first attack. The following history, ab-
breviated from Dr. Abercrombie's statement, will
further illustrate the fact that memory, as well as
other faculties, may exist to a greater extent than
WITH DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 147
our ordinary use of recollection would warrant uf
to suppose. A girl, seven years of age, employee1
in tending cattle, was accustomed to sleep in ai
apartment next to one which was frequently occu
pied by an itinerant fiddler, who was a musician of
considerable skill, and who often spent a part of
the night in performing pieces of a refined descrip-
tion. These performances were noticed by the
child only as disagreeable noises. After residing
in this house for 6ix months she fell into bad
health, and was removed by a benevolent lady to
her own home; where, on her recovery, she was
employed as a servant. Some years after she
came to reside with this lady, the wonder of the
family was strongly excited by hearing the most
beautiful music during the night, especially as they
spent many waking hours in vain endeavors to dis-
cover the invisible minstrel. At length the sound
was traced to the sleeping room of the girl, who
was fast asleep, but uttering from her lips sounds
exactly resembling those of a small violin. On
further observation it was found, that after being
about two hours in bed she became restless, and
began to mutter to herself; she then uttered tones
precisely like the tuning of a violin, and at length,
after some prelude, dashed off into elaborate pieces
of music, which she performed in a clear and ac-
curate manner, and with a sound not to be dis-
tinguished from the most delicate modulations of
that instrument. During the performance she
Bometimes stopped, imitated the re-tuning hei
instrument, and then began exactly where she had
stopped, in the most correct manner. These par-
148 THE CONNECTION OF MEMORY
oxysms occurred at irregular intervals, varying
from one to fourteen, or even twenty nights; and
they were generally followed by a degree of fever.
After a year or two her music was not confined tc
the imitation of the violin, but was often exchanged
for that of a piano, which she was accustomed to
hear in the house where she now lived; and she
then also began to sing, imitating exactly the voices
of several ladies of the family. In another year
from this time she began to talk a great deal in
her sleep, in which she seemed to fancy herself
instructing a younger companion. She often des-
canted with the utmost fluency and correctness on
a great variety of topics, both political and religious;
the news of the day, the historical parts of Scripture,
of public characters, of members of the family, and
of their visitors. In these discussions she showed
the most wonderful discrimination ; often combined
with sarcasm, and astonishing powers of memory.
Her language through the whole was fluent and
correct, and her illustrations often forcible and
even eloquent. She was fond of illustrating her
subjects by what she called a fable, and in these
her imagery was both appropriate and elegant.
" She was by no means limited in her range—
Buonaparte, Wellington, Blucher, and all the kings
of the earth, figured among the phantasmagoria of
her brain; and all were animadverted upon with
such freedom from restraint, as often made me think
poor Nancy had been transported into Madame
Genlis's Palace of Truth." She has been known
to conjugate correctly Latin verbs, which she had
probably heard in the school-room of the family,
WITH DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 144?
and she was once heard to speak several sentences
very correctly in French, and at the same time
stating that she heard them from a foreign gentle-
man. Being questioned on this subject when
awake, she remembered having seen this gentle-
man, but could not repeat a word of what he said.
During her paroxysms it was almost impossible to
awake her; and when her eyelids were raised
and a candle brought near her eye, the pupi1
seemed insensible to the light.
During the whole period of this remarkable
affection, which seems to have gone on for at least
ten or eleven years, she was, when awake, a duh
and awkward girl, very slow in receiving any in-
struction, though much care was bestowed upon
her; and, in point of intellect, she was much infe
rior to the other servants of the family. She show-
ed no kind of turn for music, and had not any
recollection of what passed during her sleep.
We are not surprised to find that this singula]
and interesting girl afterward deviated from the
path of virtue and became insane. The surprise
is, that those persons who exhibited kindness to
her in the early history of her life, should have
abandoned her when disposed to self-abandonment.
This is not the manner of a true Christian spirit,
which exerts itself to counteract ignorance and de
lusion, and deems those most pitiable and most
worthy of watchful care, who are farthest removed
from the enjoyment of truth and purity. She had
evidently labored under disease of the brain, es-
pecially that part which is influenced by the higher
intellectual faculties; therefore the greater should
N*
150 THE CONNECTION OF MEMORY
have been the care of her friends to protect h»t
from the persuasions of sensual temptation, which
always becomes mighty in proportion to the de-
velopment of the animal propensities, unless con-
trolled by motives derived from superior knowledge
and expectations.
Double consciousness is curiously tested in the
case of a person who can not preserve attention
to his body, or to things around him, in conse-
quence of being overpowered by fatigue. He
sits, we will suppose, in some uneasy position,
not allowing him to resign himself to sleep, but
keeping him in a state of alternation between im-
perfect sleeping and waking; so that he is con-
stantly correcting the aberrations of consciousness
that occur in the mind, when the will ceases to act
on the senses, by the returning consciousness of
his situation when slightly roused. Here the in-
dividual recognizes the double mode of his exist-
ence, and in the course of a few minutes passes
several times from the one state to the other,
dreaming one instant and reasoning the next
However the fact may be explained, he is con-
scious of transition and loses not the sense of his
identity, although the memory associated with the
exercise of the senses is distinctly seen to differ
from that which exists during their suspense; for,
in reality, the perceptions of the difference be-
tween the objects of the memory in the dreaming
and in the wakeful conditions, constitutes all by
which the mind knows the difference between
sleep and vigilance.
When the exercise of memory is disordered, as.
WITH DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 151
for instance, by disease of the brain, it is often
difficult for the patient to awake to a conscious-
ness of realities; and he is apt, as in cases of in-
sanity, to blend the memory of dreams with the
impressions of objects on his senses; or even,
while apparently gazing at a real scene, to be
attending only to an imaginary or remembered
one. This state was exemplified in the case of an
aged gentleman, whose remarkable affection was
lately the subject of public inquiry, and who,
while looking out of a window on a wide prospect
in England, described it to his housekeeper as a
scene in Barbadoes, where he had an estate, and
the different parts of that estate he pointed out
very minutely. This individual suffered from dis-
ease which often rendered him incapable of com-
paring ideas with present impressions, or dreaming
with wakefulness, and of course rendered his mem-
ory almost as uncertain when awake as when in a
dream.
CHAPTER XVIII.
FURTHER FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS IN PROOF OF THE
IMMATERIAL NATURE OF MEMORY.
We daily experience the recurrence of past im-
pressions to be entirely independent on the will,
and we are often surprised at the distinctness with
which scenes that had long been lost in oblivion
suddenly reappear without the possibility of our
detecting the cause of their revival. That such
resurrections of thought and impression result from
some constant law of our existence, there can not
be a doubt; but that the recognized influence of
association is insufficient for the purpose of ex-
plaining the fact, we possess abundant proof, in
those examples of renewed recollection or its loss,
which are so common in consequence of disease
Sir Astley Cooper relates the case of a sailor who
was received into St. Thomas's Hospital, in a
state of stupor, from an injury in the head, which
had continued some months. After an operation
he suddenly recovered, so far as to speak, but no
one in the hospital understood his language. But
a Welsh milk-woman, happening to come into the
ward, answered him, for he spoke Welsh, which
was his native language. He had, however, been
IMMATERIAL NATURE OF MEMORY. 153
absent from Wales more than thirty years, and
previous to the accident had entirely forgotten
Welsh, although he now spoke it fluently, and
recollected not a single word of any other tongue.
On his perfect recovery, he again completely forgot
his Welsh, and recovered his English.
An Italian gentleman, mentioned by Dr. Rush,
in the beginning of an illness spoke English; in
the middle of it, French; but, on the day of his
death, spoke only Italian. A Lutheran clergy-
man, of Philadelphia, informed Dr. Rush that
Germans and Swedes, of whom he had a large
number in his congregation, when near death,
always prayed in their native languages, though
some of them, he was confident, had not spoken
them for fifty or sixty years. An ignorant servant
girl, mentioned by Coleridge, during the delirium
of fever, repeated, with perfect correctness, pass-
ages from a number of theological works in Latin,
Greek, and Rabbinical Hebrew. It was at length
discovered that she had been servant to a learned
clergyman, who was in the habit of walking back-
ward and forward along a passage by the kitchen,
and there reading aloud his favorite authors.
Dr. Abercrombie relates the case of a child,
four years of age, who underwent the operation of
trepanning while in a state of profound stupor
from a fracture of the skull. After his recovery,
he retained no recollection either of the operation
or the accident; yet, at the age of fifteen, during
the delirium of a fever, he gave his mother an
exact description of the operation, of the persons
present, their dress, and many other minute par-
154 IMMATERIAL NATURE OF MEMORY.
ticulars. Dr. Pritchard mentions a man who had
been employed with a beetle and wedges, splitting
wood. At night he put these implements in the
hollow of an old tree, and directed his sons to ac-
company him the next morning in making a fence.
In the night, however, he became mad. After
several years his reason suddenly returned, and
the first question he asked was, whether his sons
had brought home the beetle and wedges. They,
being afraid to enter into an explanation, said they
could not find them; on which he arose, went to
the field where he had been to work so many
years before, and found, in the place where he
had left them, the wedges and the iron rings of
the beetle, the wooden part having moldered
away.
It is a remarkable fact that, in many instances,
disorder of faculty, more particularly of memory,
having resulted from extensive organic disease of
the brain, yet individuals so afflicted have, never-
theless, had lucid intervals and a perfect restoration
of memory. This has been so marked, in some
cases, as to have induced the hope of recovery
when death has been near at hand, and has even
rapidly ensued, from the increase of the very dis-
ease which led to the mental incapacity. Mr-
Marshall relates, that a man died with a pound of
water in his brain, who, just before death, became
perfectly rational, although he had been long in a
6tate ofidiocy. Dr. Holland refers to similar cases,
and I have witnessed one. Now, unless we con-
clude that mind has been re-created on such occa
6ions, in accommodation to the organic defects, we
IMMATERIAL NATURE OF MEMORY. 155
must conclude that the mind exists in its integrity,
when once formed, distinct as the light of heaven;
though, like it, subject to eclipse and cloud in its
earthly manifestations.
Many such cases might be adduced, but the
foregoing facts suffice to prove that, though a
healthy condition of the brain is essential to the
proper manifestation of mind in this state of being,
or in keeping with the use of the senses, yet that
a history of events lies hidden in the soul, which
only requires suitable excitement and appropriate
circumstances to cause it to be unfolded to the
eye of the mind, in due order, like a written roll.
And, moreover, these facts indicate that our bodies
and our minds are mercifully constituted, in mutual
fitness and accommodation to each other and the
world we dwell in. They also show that the
active employment of the will, and bodily health
with diversified bodily engagements, are the best
means of correcting that tendency to mental ab-
sence which precedes and accompanies insanity.
Moreover, these cases, as well as many others
equally well authenticated, " furnish proofs and
instances that relics of sensation may exist for an
indefinite time in a latent state, in the very same
order in which they were originally impressed."
Indeed, activity and intensity of all mental power
seems to depend on the removal of bodily impedi-
ment. At least we see that certain states of body
allow the mind to act, without the consciousness
of difficulty or effort. Thus Dr. Willis relates the
case of a gentleman, who expected his fits of in-
156 IMMATERIAL NATURE OF MEMORY.
sanity with impatience, because of the facility with
which he then exercised his memory and imagina
tion. He said, " every thing appeared easy to me.
No obstacles presented themselves, either in theory
or practice. My memory acquired, all of a sud-
den, a singular degree of perfection. Long pass-
ages of Latin authors occurred to my mind. In
general, I have great difficulty in finding rythmical
terminations; but then I could write verses with as
great facility as prose." I knew a clergyman, of
fine intellect, who was remarkable for fits of hesi-
tancy in preaching; but who, in his dreams, was
accustomed to express himself with intense and
most fluent eloquence. Dr. Haycock, professor
of medicine, in Oxford, would give out a text, and
deliver a good sermon on it, in his sleep, but was
incapable of such discourse when awake. A wri-
ter in Frazer's Magazine mentions a lady who
performed every part of the Presbyterian service
in her sleep. Some of her sermons were pub-
lished. They consist principally of texts of Scrip-
ture appropriately strung together.
In the Edinburgh Journal of Science, a lady is
described as being subject to disease, during which
she repeated great quantities of poetry in her sleep,
and even capped verses for half an hour at a time,
never failing to quote lines beginning with the
final letter of the preceeding, till her memory, or
rather her brain, was exhausted.
We can not rationally suppose that the peculiar
states of the brain, under which memory has thus
recurred, acted in any other way than either as a
IMMATERIAL NATURE OF MEMORY. 157
stimulus or medium of action to something always
ready to act. These facts, therefore, contribute
to make it probable that all thoughts are in them-
selves imperishable; " yea, in the very nature of
a living spirit, it may be more possible that heaven
and earth should pass away than that a single
thought should be loosened or lost from that living
chain of causes, to all whose links, conscious or
unconscious, the free will,— our only absolute
itself,—is co-extensive and co-present."*
How awful is the conviction, that the book of
judgment is that of our life, in which every idle
word is recorded ; and that no power but His who
made the soul can obliterate our ideas and our
deeds from our remembrance, or blot out trans-
gressions and purify our spirits from the actual in-
dwelling of evil thoughts!
Every individual experience amply testifies that
the forgotten incidents of long-past years require
only the touch of the kindling spirit to start up, in
all their pristine freshness, before us. How often
do we remember having recognized in our dreams
those feelings and circumstances which had been
lost to our waking consciousness, in the accumu-
lated events which passing time had impressed
upon our minds ! And although we can not say
that we acknowledge, as belonging to our own
actual experience, all the visionary combinations
which are thus presented to our notice in dreams,
we yet feel that every object in them is familiar to
our knowledge. Some persons, as we have said,
* Coleridge.
o
158 IMMATERIAL NATURE OF MEMORY.
on the near approach of death have spoken of the
incidents of their lives as being simultaneously pre-
sented before them as if in a magic mirror, every
line as if fixed upon a tablet by the light, exactly
as that revealing light fell on it. The portrait of
the soul is the perfect reflection of itself, and every
man must see his own character thus for ever visi-
ble to the eye of God, and, probably, hereafter to
angels and to men.
The present consciousness of life is but a condi-
tion of mind, and our enjoyments are but expres-
sions of the state of our wills ; therefore a change
of state makes no alteration in our characters, but
serves only to exhibit them in new aspects. Thus
variety of circumstances tests the stability of our
moral principles ; but these can be modified only
by the relation in which the soul stands with regard
to God, the source of moral law; for death is but
a change of state, not of moral character.
In connection with this subject it is interesting to
remember that immediately preceding death the
mind is commonly occupied about those things with
which it has been most intimate during health.
Thus Napoleon's last words words were " Head"
—" Army." Those of a celebrated judge were
" Gentlemen of the jury, you are discharged."
Cardinal Beaufort cried, "What, no bribing
death!"
Reason and revelation agree, then, in asserting,
that absolute forgetfulness, or obliteration, is im-
possible ; and that all the events of our history are
written in our living spirits; and, whether seen or
IMMATERIAL NATURE OF MEMORY. 159
unseen, will there remain forever, unless removed
by the act of a merciful Omnipotence ! It is true,
that a thousand incidents will spread a veil between
our present consciousness and the record on the
soul, but there the record rests waiting the judg-
ment of God. These sublime facts deeply warn
us as to the manner in which we suffer our facul-
ties to be engaged, not only as their exercise affects
ourselves, but also in their influence on the destiny
cf others.
Viewing the subject, then, both physiologically
and metaphysically, we must infer that memory has
relation to another mode of existence; and that
though, as regards this sphere of being, recollection
is greatly influenced by the will, yet that much lies
stored in latency, which can only be called into ex-
ercise under coming circumstances, when the will
shall be more largely endowed, in a manner corre-
sponding with its new relations, and thus be ena-
bled to connect new facts with past impressions.
The reasoning and undisturbed spirit shall then un-
derstand the meaning of all associated knowledge,
and memory shall preserve within us a conscious-
ness of all we have experienced through this life,
and add it to that which is to come. Memory, in-
deed, seems intended to qualify us to treasure im-
pressions in all worlds, and to carry on the record
and history of our feelings from time to eternity.
But if the experience of earth is to be our all, then
memory is without a sufficient purpose. Is death
indeed to end the scene in perpetual oblivion 1 Is
knowledge itself, though the result of a laborious
160 IMMATERIAL NATURE OF MEMORY.
lift; of attention and of effort, to close forever, like
a beautiful symphony, significant of richer harmony
to come, but yet terminating, we know not why, in
abrupt and eternal silence? Is the stream to be
lost, not in ocean, but in nothing 1 No. The ever-
lasting future grows upon the past; remembrance
is the basis of eternal knowledge. In fact, the full
purpose of any one of our intellectual endowments
does not appear to be fulfilled in the limited and
broken exercise which is afforded to it in the pres-
ent stage of being, since the utmost advantage we
derive from the employment of our faculties now
.s to become religious, that is, to be re-bound to the
worship and enjoyment of God. Can it be that this
re-binding of the prodigal soul to the Eternal Father
is only for death, like the victim bound to the altar,
to be sacrificed and consumed to ashes, from which
no Phoenix-life arises 1
Our best ratiocination, under the stimulus of
the highest and purest affections, is only an ability
to reason from things past to things future, and
from experience to analogy; thence obtaining the
promise, the desire, the assurance of enlarged
capacity for understanding and blessedness ; since
hope and doubt, in equal balance, are otherwise
the only ends of our utmost knowledge here.
But expectation and inquiry are purposeless, if
there be not a futurity in the mind of God for us,
which shall illuminate the chaos and satisfy the
trustful soul. Can it be that our Maker has given
us a life so rich in promise and excitation merely
to terminate in a question that must receive no
IMMATERIAL NATURE OF MEMORY. 161
answer. Is it not most consonant with simple
reason, as well as with revelation (which is God's
response to reason), to believe that our holy desires
are properly directed forward to coming events
for their fruition; and that what we know, or
think we know, now, is intended only to excite
our longing for the larger knowledge reserved for
hereafter. God is not the God of the dead, but
of the living; for all who live for Him live in
Him—the life itself; and what we taste of life in
this world is but the covenant and agreement of
God with our spirits,—a covenant that can not be
broken.
As we can not believe that Omnipotence ever
created even an atom of matter and afterward an-
nihilated it, so we can not believe that mind and
spirit, created in his own likeness, capable of
communion with Himself, and so far partaking of
his own nature, should ever perish. Every im-
pression, every idea, every sensation has a place
in the individuality of every soul's experience, and
is appropriate and necessary to the growth and
edification of that soul, and can not be destroyed
without the undoing of the work which Divine
Wisdom and power have accomplished; so that to
suppose a human being annihilated, or any part
of his experience forever blotted out, is to imagine
providence without a purpose, and omniscient
wisdom without an object or an end worthy of
human creation. And are not the facts we have
related concerning attention and memory in per-
fect agreement with this conclusion of our reason %
11
162 IMMATERIAL NATURE OF MEMORY.
Here, then, let us pause and ponder on the wonders
of our mental and moral being, and the vastness
of our destiny as the offspring of the Everlasting
Father.
PART II.
THE INFLUENCE OF MENTAL DETERMINATION AND
EMOTION OVER THE BODY.
CHAPTER I.
THE POSITIVE ACTION OF THE MIND ON THE BODY,
ASSERTED AND EXEMPLIFIED IN THE EFFECTS OF
EXCESSIVE ATTENTION.
Physiology teaches us, by a multitude of facts,
that every atom of the animal structure is sub-
jected to perpetual change ; and that every motion,
every action of the body, is the consequence of
alteration in the vital condition of one or more of
its parts. Not a thought, not an idea, not an
affection or feeling of the mind can be excited
without positive change in the brain and in the
secretions; for every variation in the state of the
whole, or any portion, of the nervous system, is of
course accompanied by a coirespondent change in
those organs and functions which it furnishes with
energy.
The body can be influenced only by four kinds
of force,—chemical, mechanical, vital, and mental.
Health and enjoyment mfly be destroyed mechani-
164 ACTION OF MIND ON BODY
cally, as by a blow. Any thing which acts chemi-
cally may also injure the body, as fire. No ar-
guments can be required to show that the life of
the body is maintained in spite of a constant ten-
dency to death; that is, the resident life is inces-
santly counteracting the common chemical and
mechanical influences which are around it. De-
composition and decay commence the moment
life leaves the body. So then life appears to be a
distinct power. But what is it] We know not.
It is neither tangible nor visible. It can not be
weighed nor tested. Like the soul, it is discover-
able only by its effects on chemical and mechan-
ical agents. It is not the production of the body,
for without it the body itself could not have com-
menced. It operates on one body, through another,
so as to produce a third. It is something capable
of being communicated, and is probably independ-
ent on organization, at least some fluids are im
bued with it. The purpose of vitality, as regards
man, is to bring inert matter into such relations
to the mind as that the mind may be developed
through it, by making physical organization sub-
servient to consciousness and volition. Life is the
source of the body's growth, preservation, and
reproduction. It exhibits itself in modifying tho
action of external influences, and by the evolution
of new forms under the power of impregnation.
But the mind acts as clearly and distinctly on the
body as either chemical, mechanical, or vital agen-
cy ; therefore the mind must possess a distinct ex-
istence, action, and force, capable of being super-
added to life as life is to matter. Mind, in fact,
ASSERTED AND EXEMPLIFIED. 165
is the mightiest power we know, and perhaps,
properly speaking, the only power. Chemical ac-
tion is but relative, and the result of some power
constantly ready to act on matter according to cir-
cumstances. Sulphuric acid and potash combine
when brought into contact under ordinaiy circum-
stances, because something produces a reciprocal
change in their particles when within a certain
distance of each other; but this change is prevent-
ed altogether by causing a galvanic current to in-
fluence these bodies, and sulphuric acid may thus
be passed through a solution of potash without
their combining. We see, then, that chemical ac-
tion is dependent on electrical action, and elec-
trical action is dependent on some superior power;
the same, it may be, as that which causes gravita-
tion, magnetism, polarity, heat, light, and which
pervades all elements; a power which can not be
called material, and which obeys only that will
which evoked the universe and still sustains it.
In short, all power may be traced up directly to
the mind that created and manages all things.
This view of the action of matter may easily be
carried on to a comparison with that of mind; for
we at once perceive the reasonableness of conclud-
ing that created mind, as well as matter, may exist
in a quiescent state until brought into relation with
certain arrangements and conditions of matter, or
with other minds, according to affinities and laws
which operate only under the direct influence of
some superior, all-pervading power. Such a notion
is consistent with the facts within our knowledge,
and brings us at once to the necessity of acknowl-
166 ACTION OF MIND ON BODY
edging our total dependence, for all the purposes
of our being, on the will that wisely and benevo-
lently determines how and when we shall feel, so
that under one set of circumstances we shall be un-
conscious, and under another be thoroughly kindled
with emotion.
We have already observed the power of the will
in directing and enforcing the motions of the mus-
cles, but if we further reflect on the various ways
in which will operates, we shall not fail to be struck
with the vast extent of its influences, not only over
the muscles, but also over the source of bodily fife
itself, for its exercise modifies the action both of the
brain and the heart—taking possession, so to speak,
of the fountains of energy, and regulating in some
measure the supply of blood and life to different
parts of the body. This is said not merely of the
ordinary power of emotion, but of voluntary em-
ployment of the body ; not of sudden impulse, but
of steady purpose, such as the determined student
or the artist evinces in his patient labor with the
book, the pen, the pencil, or the graver.
We will confine our observation for a moment to
the more mechanical work of the engraver as an
example of simple attention. He sits with his eye
and mind intent upon the fine lines of his copper or
steel plate; and, as he looks more earnestly he
holds his breath; and as his attention strengthens
in its fixedness, his breathing becomes audible and
irregular. Now and then he is forced to sigh to re-
lieve his burdened and excited heart; for the blood
is retarded in the lungs and brain, and if they be
not soon relieved by some change of object or of
ASSERTED AND EXEMPLIFIED. 167
action he turns faint and dizzy. Being wrought up
to the same intensity day after day, he comes at
length upon the extreme verge of danger. The
right ventricle of the heart becomes oppressed in
consequence of imperfect action of the lungs, while
the general circulation is quickened, and thus dila-
tation of the heart soon follows, with disordered
liver and accumulation of black blood in the abdo-
men, bringing on a long train of morbid sensations,
with constant dread of coming death. Moderate,
but frequent exercise in the open air, with cheerful
society, as it would have prevented this miserable
condition, will also still relieve it; but if this duty
be neglected the evil rapidly increases. The pa-
tient's heart palpitates excessively when either the
mind or the body is hurried; he is " tremblingly
alive" in every limb, and his nervous system com-
pletely fails him. Pallid, weak, timid, and tremu-
lous, he is apt to become too sensitive to endure
the anxieties of domestic duty; and, if he be not
sustained by high religious or moral principles, he
seeks a respite from his wretchedness in the sooth-
ing, yet aggravating narcotism of opium or tobacco,
or in the insidious excitement of some fermented
liquor; and thus gradually casts himself out from
all happy and natural associations, and ends his
days either as a hypocondriac, a madman, or a
drunkard. This is not an exaggerated, but alas!
a common picture. The evil is aggravated in these
cases by the state of the mind and that of the body
being equally irritable, they act and react on each
other, and the passions of the one, as well as the
functions of the other, become so disordered that
168 ACTION CF MIND ON BODY
perfect sleep can not be obtained, and the persistent
exhaustion produces a chronic fever, for which rest,
the only remedy, is sought in vain, except in the
grave.
The failure of the nervous system, and the fear-
ful recourse to narcotics and stimulants for its re
lief, are often witnessed where the tyranny of Mam-
mon exacts too long an attention to the mechanical
and anxious business of art. Its results are still
visible in a frightful degree among the operatives
of our great manufactories, where the eye must be
quick, and the hand ever ready for one monotonous
action, hour after hour and day after day, with the
mathematical precision and rapidity of machinery,
even through all that period of life when nature
most demands a cheerful diversity of object and
action.
But the commercial Moloch demands the perpet-
ual sacrifice of almost the whole bodily and mental
being of those who are providentially so poor as to
have nothing to sell but themselves. The millions
sterling which their labors have won from many
lands belong to those who employ them; how then
shall they be protected 1 Ceaseless toil is their pro-
tection, say some, because it preserves their morals !
This subject, however, is too large for these pages.
The great fact which we would observe, is, the
power of his will over the body, for a man dies
from voluntary fatigue, in the determination to em-
ploy his muscles. Whether he thus exhausts his
vital energy in duty or for the indulgence of his ap-
petites, he still demonstrates the dominance of his
will, since he undergoes the extremity of toil to
ASSERTED AND EXEMPLIFIED. 169
answer his own purpose, under whatever circum-
stances he may be constrained to exert himself.
The will, then, is the master principle, even in a
slave, and therefore its moral state must determine
every man's moral destiny.
P
CHAPTER II.
INJUDICIOUS EDUCATION.
If the nervous system allowed the mind to in-
tend, reason would appear in its power as much at
six years of age as at sixty. The child does reason
then, and that correctly, to the extent of its knowl-
edge ; and is as capable of enjoying intellectual
truth as in maturer years, provided the faculties bo
cultivated in an appropriate manner. Perhaps the
most beautiful instance of such premature enjoy-
ment is that furnished by Washington Irving, in his
memoir of Margaret Davidson, a child, of whom it
is stated that, when only in her sixth year, her lan-
guage was elevated, and her mind so filled with
poetic imagery and religious thought, that she read
with enthusiasm and elegance Thomson's Seasons,
The Pleasures of Hope, Cowper's Task, and the
writings of Milton, Byron, and Scott. The sacred
writings were her daily study ; and notwithstand-
ing her poetic temperament, she had a high relish
for history, and read with as much interest an ab-
struse treatise, that called forth the reflective pow-
ers, as she did poetry or works of imagination.
Her physical frame was delicately constituted to
receive impressions, and her mother was capable
INJUDICIOUS EDUCATION. 171
of observing and improving the opportunity afford-
ed to instruct her. Nothing was learned by rote,
and every object of her thought was discussed in
conversation with a mind sympathizing with her
own. Such a course, however, while it demon-
strates the power of the mind, proves also that such
premature employment of it is inconsistent with the
physiology of the body; for while the spirit revel-
ed in the ecstasies of intellectual excitement, the
vital functions of the physical frame-work were
fatally disturbed. She read, she wrote, she danced,
she sung, and was the happiest of the happy ; but,
while the soul thus triumphed, the body became
more and more delicate, and speedily failed alto-
gether under the successive transports.
The brain of a child, however forward, is totally
unfit for that intellectual exertion to which many
fond parents either force or excite it. Fatal dis-
ease is thus frequently induced; and where death
does not follow, idiocy, or at least such confusion
of faculty ensues, that the moral perception is ob-
scured, and the sensative child becomes a man of
hardened vice, or of insane self-will. Many ex-
amples of this may be found, particularly among
the rigid observers of formal imitations of religion
and the refined ceremonies of high civilization.
There are numerous manuals to lead the infant
mind from nature up to nature's God, as if it were
in the nature of childhood to need manuals and
catechisms of Botany, Geometry, and Astronomy
to teach them the goodness of the Creator and the
Savior. Fathers and mothers rather need manu
als to teach them how to treat their children, see
172 INJUDICIOUS EDUCATION.
ing that nearly half of those brought forth die in
infancy, and the majority of the survivors are mor-
bid, both in mind and body. It is the parental
character, in wisdom and love-watching, to bring
the child into sympathy with true knowledge and
affection, that represents and imitates the Divine
Mind, as commended to our study by His acts.
Even the persuasives of religious discipline, in-
stead of falling like the gentle dew from heaven,
are too frequently made hard, and dry, and harsh,
as if the Gospel were the invention of a mathe-
matical tyrant, to fashion souls by geometric rules,
and not the expression of the mind of love, in-
spiring by example. The contrast, in personal
appearance and manner, between a child trained
under the winning management of a wise, firm,
commanding love, and another subjected to the
despotic control of fear, is very striking. In the
former, we observe a sprightly eye and open coun-
tenance, with a genial vivacity and trustfulness in
the general expression of the body; a mixture of
confiding sociality with intelligence, an alacrity of
movement, and a healthiness of soul, evinced in
generous activity and smiles. Even if the body
be enfeebled, still a certain bright halo surrounds,
as it were, the mental constitution. But physical,
as well as intellectual vigor and enjoyment, are
usually the happy result of that freedom of heart
and generosity of spirit, which skillful affection
endeavors to encourage. Then, in youth and
manhood, a noble intelligence confirming the pro-
priety of such early training; but the child who
finds a tyrant instead of a fostering parent, if
INJUDICIOUS EDUCATION. 173
naturally delicate, acquires a timid bearing, a
languid gait, a sallow cheek, a pouting lip, a
stupid torpidity, or a sullen defiance ; for nature's
defense from tyranny is either hard stupidity or
cunning daring.
In this country the feeble slave too often skulks
through life a cowering and cowardly hypocrite;
defending himself from the craft and violence of
others' selfishness by every meanness, and seeking
his enjoyment by the sly, as if he feared to be
found susceptible of pleasure. His character is
engraven on his face. The child of robust frame
will, however, learn to face the tyrant, and, acquir-
ing his worse features, at length be fit only to
associate with ruffians, or to drive slaves.
Children are not formed for monotony and fix-
edness : their nervous systems will not bear it with
impunity, and even their very bones are intolerant
of the erect position for any length of time. They
are made to be restless and active, and are not
healthy if forced to be otherwise. The system of
excessive restraint is therefore unchristian, because
it is unnatural; for Christianity is not opposed to
nature; it is not a violence, but a superior influ-
ence in correspondence with an inferior. It is a
spirit that subdues by possessing the will, and
which educates by inducing and fostering the
sweet sympathies of religious love,—like the gen-
tle dew, and the light and warmth of heaven,
evolving the living seed. The government of fear
and force is the plan tof every imaginable hell,
where each evil begets a greater, and terror and
hatred torment each other. If, then, we would
174
INJUDICIOUS EDUCATION.
know how to manage a little child, let us imagine
how Jesus would have treated it. Would he not
have engaged its happiest feelings and affections,
won its heart, and blessed it 1 While sitting on
his knee, would not the child have gazed into that
"human face divine," and learned the gentleness
and power of its Heavenly Father 1 Let it not be
forgotten that the Savior said, " whoso shall receive
one such little child in my name, receiveth me:
but whoso shall offend one of these little ones that
believeth in me, it were better that a mill-stone
were hanged about his neck and he drowned in
the depth of the sea." If the words from which
we obtain the notion do not deceive us, superior
and holy beings are concerned about our offspring,
and each child has its guardian angel, who be-
holds the face of God. How would that angel,
if conversing with it, in visible beauty, talk to the
child, and kindle its affections 1 Surely by show-
ing the might of graciousness with sublime sim-
plicity ; like that of the disciple whom Jesus loved,
when he said, "little children lpve one another."
That angel would be more successful in his teach-
ing only, because he would be more accommo-
dating to the body, more earnest, more gentle,
more attractive, and more sympathizing. He
would have no greater truths to inculcate than
we have, but knowing more clearly than we do
the delicacy of our mysterious constitution, and the
worth of a soul, with its intellect and affections
formed for eternity, he would act more gently and
cautiously with its bodily temperament. Let us
imitate the loving angel—the loving Savior—the
INJUDICIOUS EDUCATION. 175
loving God—in kindness toward little children,
and show them nothing but love ; since they will
respond to that spirit, but be repulsed into sin and
agony by every other.
Piety itself is not unfrequently rendered terrible
by a perverted application of memory, to descrip-
tions in which Omnipotence is associated with the
final judgment and the terrors of guilt. Many a
little child, whose susceptible heart is as ready to
yield to the gentlest breath of affection as the
aspen-leaf to the zephyr, and whose spirit sparkles
with love as readily as a dew-drop with the fight,
acquires the habit of terror, and scarcely dares to
look up because he is taught as soon as he can
speak to repeat—
" There's not a sin that we commit,
Nor wicked word we say,
But in the dreadful book 'tis writ,
Against the judgment day."
And the thoughtless and fond parent too frequently
makes that appear to be wickedness and sin which,
however proper to childhood, is inconvenient to
those who should tenderly train it. Surely that
is a dangerous expedient for the correction of a
child, conscious of having offended the only being
he has learned to love, and while perhaps in agony
of heart begging pardon from a mother, to be told
to remember
" There is a dreadful hell
And everlasting pains,
Where sinners must forever dwell
In darkness, fire, and chains—
" And can a wretch as I
Escape this cursed end," &c. ?
Divine Songs for Children,
176 INJUDICIOUS EDUCATION.
There is reason to believe that insane despondency
and a disposition to suicide, may often be traced
to abuse of religious discipline, if religious it may
be called, especially that form of it just alluded
to. Thus the impression of despair is apt to be
burned into the very brain, to "grow with its
growth, and strengthen with its strength;" so
that in after-life the divine remedy scarcely effaces
the callous scar, or else the youth thus ill-treated
in his childhood, endeavors to escape from the
haunting terror by persuading himself that re-
ligion is invented only to keep wretches in order.
Hence the glowing and glorious words of the liv-
ing oracle—" There is joy among the angels in the
presence of God over one sinner that repenteth"
—is regarded only as an exquisite hyperbole. It
falls dead upon the ear, as if it could not be, as it
is, quickening truth from the lips of Him who is
the Life.
There is another abuse here demanding remark.
No treatment can be more injudicious and inju-
rious than that often resorted to, even in schools
of high character, namely, the exertion of mem-
ory, not for the sake of acquiring and retaining a
knowledge of facts, which must always be useful,
but merely to punish some dereliction. What
good can arise from thus fatiguing the brain, by
excessively straining that faculty, in the happy and
spontaneous associations of which all the value of
every acquirement consists ? No plan is moro
likely to disable the mind and impair the body,
as the servant of mind; for by this practice the
idea of fixing the attention on words becomes
INJUDICIOUS EDUCATION. 177
peculiarly irksome. The very countenance of a
boy thus distressed is apt to assume an ex-
pression of vacancy or irritability, and every func-
tion of his life to indicate the mischief arising
from a debilitated brain under disorderly asso-
ciations.
As the emulative success of classical education
is generally dependent on an excessive determina-
tion of mind, for the purpose of rapidly loading
the memory, it is of course attended for the most
part with a correspondent risk to the nervous sys-
tem of aspirants after academic honors. Men-
tally speaking, those who bear the palm in severe
universities rarely survive the effort necessary to
secure the distinction. Like phosphorescent in-
sects their brilliance lasts but a little while, and is
at its height when on the point of being extin-
guished forever. The laurel crown is commonly
for the dead; if not corporeally, yet spiritually;
and those who attain the highest honors of their
Mmm Matres are generally diseased men. Having
reached the object of their aim, by concentrating
their energies in one object, an intellectual palsy
too often succeeds, and their bodies partake of the
trembling feebleness. If their ambition survive,
and instead of slumbering away a dreamy exist-
ence in some retired nook, they occupy promi-
nent stations in public life, disease of the brain,
heart, or lungs soon quenches their glory, and they
fade away. The impression of undue determina-
tion remains upon the brain, which continues sub-
servient to the ambitious will until its structure
and its functions fail together. The early effort
12
178 INJUDICIOUS EDUCATION.
opened a fountain of energy abruptly. It can not
be perennial; the waste is more rapid than the
supply; and, like water bursting from its channel,
it must run to waste, until violence ends in ex-
haustion. It happens, too, that those sanguine
spirits, who acquire knowledge with facility, and
scatter it in wit, are rather the despisers of solid
diligence; and therefore the great readers are
mostly heavy-brained men, who make up in dog-
ged determination and perseverance for lack of
readiness in acquiring. With patience, equal to
their ambition, they plod on for the prize. If
they win it, their deadly passion is confirmed; if
they lose it, again they roll the stone against the
hill and it returns to crush them. Yet who would
depreciate mental effort 1 The memory must be
trained, the soul must be determined to conquer
its impediments, the moral being will starve with-
out a store of facts, the faculty of recollecting and
arranging must be powerfully and regularly em-
ployed, or the mind becomes a desultory vagrant.
Without mental exertion in acquiring habits of
thought, youth would pass into manhood with the
medley intellect and ungovernable nervous system
of the savage, with all the corresponding dis-
orderly habits of bodily action. Education distin-
guishes the energetic citizen from the fitful barba-
rian ; the man who governs his body from the man
who obeys it; the man of principles from the man
of impulses. But we ought not to forget that true
healthy education consists in the motives which
naturally and quietly educe or lead out the mind
to think for itself, in sympathy with those who
INJUDICIOUS EDUCATION. 179
have thought, not in the routine of school-tasks
and verbal drudgery.
Intellectually speaking, man is not gregarious,
but eveiy mind has a track of its own as well as
a body of its own; therefore, those who have felt
the value of mental culture, and have taken their
course untrammeled by task-work, have generally
shown their intellectual vigor by a greater capacity
of endurance as well as by freedom, boldness, and
healthiness of thought. We may as well look for
easy walking in a Chinese lady, whose feet have
grown in iron shoes, and those very small ones, as
for easy thinking in a mind that has been cast in a
mold constructed to suit the minimi of the million.
The reflective and perceptive faculties are too
generally sacrificed at school for the sake of mere
verbal memory; and hence those who were really
most highly endowed appeared, while there, most
deficient scholars—such as Liebig, Newton, and
Walter Scott.
In conclusion of this chapter we may observe,
that the modern system of education appears to
be altogether unchristian; undoubtedly it contrib-
utes much to swell the fearful list of diseases, for it
is founded on an unhealthy emulation, which ruins
many both in body and in soul, while it qualifies none
the better either for business knowledge, useful-
ness, or enjoyment; but, rather, together with the
influence of the money valuation of the intellect,
causes the most heroic spirits of our age to hang
upon vulgar opinion and the state of the market.
CHAPTER III.
PECULIAR EFFECTS OF INORDINATE MENTAL
DETERMINATION.
The strongest brain will fail under the continu-
ance of intense thought. All persons, who have
been accustomed to close study, will remember
the utter and indescribable confusion that comes
over the mind when the will has wearied the brain.
A curious example has already been given in the
case of Spalding, who tells us that his attention
having been long kept on the stretch, and" also
greatly distracted, he was called upon to write a
receipt, but he had no sooner written two words
than he could proceed no further. For half an
hour he could neither think consecutively, nor
speak, except in words which he did not intend.
Afterward he recovered, and found that instead of
writing on the receipt " fifty dollars, being half a
year's rate," &c, he had written " fifty dollars,
through the salvation of Bra—," the last word be-
ing left unfinished, and without his having the least
recollection of what he intended it to be. This
state presents a specimen of partial delirium 01
UNDUE MENTAL DETERMINATION. 181
waking dream; the will still acting, but incapable
of controlling the thoughts or connecting memory
with present impression. This must depend on
the state of nerve produced by the mental intensity,
which, when continued to extreme exhaustion, we
know to be capable of so altering the sensation as
that objects presented to the eye assume appear-
ances which do not belong to them. Thus Sir
Joshua Reynolds, after being occupied many hours
in painting, saw trees in lamp-posts, and moving
shrubs in men and women. This kind of inability
to command attention is most readily induced
by monotonous study. Persons of lymphatic tem-
perament are peculiarly liable to this kind of ex-
haustion, and should therefore employ their minds
with great caution, or otherwise their determina-
tion will prove the destruction of their reason ; for,
in fact, a persistence of this want of control over
attention is insanity, as we see in those instances in
which persons confound things together of an in-
congruous nature ; as when the anatomist, having
fatigued his nervous system by a long-continued
dissection, talked of a town to which he referred
as situated in the deltoid muscle. Disorder from
excessive attention is sometimes manifested in a
still odder manner, as in the case of the celebrated
Dr. Watts, who, after great exertion of mind,
thought his head too large to allow him to pass out
at the study door. A gentleman, after delivering
a lecture at the College of Surgeons, said that his
head felt as if it filled the room. Sometimes fatigue
produces permanent insanity. Thus, in the Ger-
man Psychological Magazine, a case is related of a
Q.
182 PECULIAR EFFECTS OF UNDUE
soldier who, after great fatigue, happened to read
the book of Daniel, and from that moment believ-
ed that ho could perform miracles, such as plant an
apple-tree which, by his power, should bear cher-
ries. Determinate effort of mind sometimes in-
duces a peculiar insanity, when the nervous system
becomes habituated to extreme exhaustion. A cer-
tain form of this malady occurs in paroxysms of
ecstatic abstraction suddenly seizing the person and
fixing him like a living statue; with the body slight-
ly bent, every limb rigid with rapture, the arms
elevated, the fore-finger pointed to some imagined
object, the eyelids staring wide, the eyes turned
up with an intense and motionless expression,
and the lips a little separated; in short, the whole
attitude and countenance expressive of the most
awful admiration. This is the description of
a real case arising from intense concentration
of thought, continued without regard to bod-
ily exercise or proper change in the mental oh
ject.
It is remarkable that similar states may be pro-
duced by the will of another, even in those who
have not shown any tendency to it, when they sur-
render their wills to the impressions produced by
another's action. Baron Dupotet, who lately made
some noise in London by his feats of mesmerism,
had the power, by his manceuvers, of speedily
throwing certain individuals either into sleep, or
convulsions, or a rigid condition, such as that just
described. This was effected without any collusion,
and in many cases without the slightest idea on the
patient's part of what was likely to follow. Such
MENTAL DETERMINATION. 183
facts are never disputed by physiologists now, and,
perhaps, they may be generally accounted for by
i the direct action of the mind on the body, or, at
least, by mental excitement in connection with some
disorder of the nervous system; since they are quite
in keeping with what we observe to arise indepen
dently of those tricks of hand called animal magnet-
ism. In these cases, as far as I have witnessed
them, there appears to be a propagation of impres-
sion from the senses, especially sight, to the center
of the individual's nervous system, thereby altering
the direction of nervous energy. Intense and
eager attention, with undefined dread, and with the
eye fixed on the hand or eye of a person apparent-
ly set upon bewitching one, is a process which few
could submit to for any length of time without
strange sensations being produced. Hence it has
happened that a firm man, who knew nothing about
the matter, has sat down with laughter, but soon
his attention has been fixed upon the wizard's hand,
and ere long he has looked unutterably stupid, like
a drunkard, then turned pale, then became immov-
able, except just as the magician before him was
pleased to point—now with his nose to the ground
—now upward—now aslant—now with body twist-
ed this way—now that—now standing—now sit-
ting—and now walking, or rather stalking, just
as the pantomimic indications of the enchanter;
and all this, as it appeared, simply from the
effect of an unnatural and overpowering atten-
tion on a brain unprepared by a habit of healthy
action.
In ecstasy or trance, the patient's mind is ah-
184 PECULIAR EFFECTS OF UNDUE
sorbed on some object of imagination; as the term
ecstasy implies, persons so impressed are out of
the body, engrossed in spiritual contemplations.
The muscles are sometimes relaxed, at other times
rigid; the will, however, often continues to exert
an influence over certain parts of the body, such as
the organs of voice ; for though they are incapable
of moving a limb, or being excited by any external
stimulus, they nevertheless occasionally give ex-
pression to their feelings by singing or speaking.
This kind of entrancing delirium is apt to occur in
persons afflicted by nervous disorder, especially
where the will is wayward; and may frequently
be produced in them by powerful excitement of
the imagination, or by mesmeric manipulations. It
is stated by individuals well qualified to detect im-
position, that in these cases there exists a kind of
transference and concentration of intelligence in
certain parts of the nervous system, so that a sort
of oracular faculty is developed, and the subjects
of this affection become capable of describing things
beyond the range of their senses, and of foretelling
events. Dr. Copland states that many of the Ital-
ian improvisatori possess their peculiar faculty
only in this state of ecstasy, or, as it may be called,
abnormal consciousness, from resolute attention to
ideas.
Probably the mind and the nervous system are
mtensely excited for some time previous to the
development of ecstasy. There is a morbid acute-
ness of feeling and thought, an inordinate employ-
ment of the attention, kept up by preceding sen-
sations, or some absorbing train of ideas, which
MENTAL DETERMINATION. 185
exhaust the sensorium, and bring it into that state
in which it often appears to be in those persons
who accustom themselves to abstract studies and
revery. This condition is more apt to occur when
strong passions are associated with a weak body.
A frequent and exhausting repetition of pleasurable
feelings begets a marked predisposition to this dis-
ordered action of the brain.
If all that is stated concerning ecstasy be true,
we are forced to the conclusion that, after the ex-
haustion of brain is carried to a certain extent, the
mind begins voluntarily to exert itself in a new and
enlarged manner, so as to exhibit phenomena which
have been named lucidity, exaltation of faculty,
clairvoyance, &c. The transition state may pre-
sent appearances like those of common delirium,
dreaming, somnambulism, and madness. It is
often accompanied by convulsions. A few cases
of an extraordinary kind may best illustrate this
curious subject. It has been testified that cat-
aleptic patients often manifest a clairvoyant fac-
ulty. A patient of Petetin, President of the
Medical Society of Lyons, in this state, is said
to have distinguished in succession several cards
laid on her stomach under the bed-clothes; she
told the hour of a watch held in the closed hand
of an inquirer, and recognized a medal grasped
in the hand of another; she read a letter placed
under the waistcoat of her physician, and mentioned
the number of gold and silver coins contained in
each end of a purse which had been slipped there
by a skeptic. She told each of the persons present
what he possessed about him most remarkable, and
186 PECULIAR EFFECTS OF UNDUE
perceived through a screen what one person was
doing.
According to the testimony of the committee of
the medical section of the French Royal Academy,
a man named Paul, having been mesmerized, be-
side many other equally wonderful things, read a
book opened at random while his eyes were forci-
bly closed by M. Jules Cloquet. He had been
mesmerized by M. Foissac. The committee also
bear evidence that other individuals in the same
state could read distinctly and play at cards with
the greatest dexterity and correctness. Their
report also declares, " that in two somnambu-
lists they found the faculty of foreseeing. One
of them announced repeatedly, several months
previously, the day, the hour, and the minute
of the access and return of epileptic fits. The
other announced the period of his cure. These
previsions were realized with remarkable exact-
ness."
Those who are curious in these marvels may find
abundance of them in many modern works. It
certainly would be passing strange should such re-
lations all prove false, since the acutest observers
of all ages have declared them to be true. At
least, Hippocrates, Aretaeus, Aristotle, &c, de-
scribe with great minuteness, and in strict accord-
ance with the statements of recent and competent
believers, a state of the body in which the powers
of the soul are exalted. Thus, Hippocrates says,
" there is a class of diseases in which men discourse
with eloquence and wisdom, and predict secret and
future events; and this they do though they are
MENTAL DETERMINATION. 187
ignorant rustics and idiots." Aretaeus states that
the mind under certain circumstances of disease be-
comes clear and prophetic, for some patients " pre-
dict their own end and certain events of interest to
those around, who think them talking deliriously,
but nevertheless are amazed to find their predic-
tions true."
Alsaharavius says, he has known many epileptics
who had a knowledge of things which he was sure
they had never learned. The occasional prevision
of the dying has been credited by almost every na-
tion, and the faculty of second sight has been almost
as universally acknowledged.
In most of the cases related in this chapter, it is
probable that the attention was kept so long in-
tensely fixed on one set of objects, that at length
the brain took on a new action, as if from physio-
logical necessity, or because the law of its organi-
zation demanded a change, violent in proportion to
its abuse. We know that there is, while awake, a
tendency to repeat sensations and ideas in an ac-
customed manner, and that there is also, during the
suspension of outward attention, a tendency to a
state contrary to that previously existing; thus a
man who has been almost maddened by vain de-
sire, say for food, will, during his sleep, enjoy a
fancied feast. From this and many similar facts
we learn that the mind possesses the power of se-
curing its own satisfaction when withdrawn from
the demands of the body; that one train of ideas
can be displaced only by substituting another; that
obedience to the laws of our bodily and mental
188 UNDUE MENTAL DETERMINATION.
economy is imperative; and hence, that there is a
necessity for exercising the will in a judicious,
moral, and religious manner, if we would enjoy a
healthy habit of thinking and acting.
CHAPTER IV.
THE EFFECTS OF UNDUE ATTENTION TO ONE*S
OWN BODY.
It has been already observed, that the education
of the senses is a mental act, in which attention and
comparison are busily at work, to determine the
relation of objects to each other and to the individ-
ual regarding them. Where the organs are per-
fect, the power of perception or the acuteness of
sensation is in proportion to the power of the mind
in directing attention, or in proportion to the degree
in which the particular sense is used, hence we find
microscopic observers, for instance, acquire such a
command over their sight, in the use of their in-
struments, as to detect the minutest variations in
objects, and. such slight shades of difference as would
be altogether overlooked by persons unaccustomed
to such investigations. This education of sense,
under the tuition of the will, is displayed in the
most remarkable manner among those savage tribes,
whose very existence depends upon the keenness
of their senses, in discovering indications of danger
or of safety among the wilds in which they dwell,
and where civilized men would be wholly at a loss
either to track prey or to avoid an enemy. The
190 UNDUE ATTENTION TO THE BODY.
dominion of the mind over certain organs of the
body is beautifully shown in such instances; but
there are curious facts in connection with this sub-
ject well worthy of observation. It is not the
senses merely that may be rendered moro acute by
effort of mind. Attention to any part of the body
is capable of exalting the sensibility of that part, 01
of causing the consciousness concerning its state to
be affected in a new manner. Thus a man may
attend to his stomach till he feels the process of di-
gestion ; to his heart, till conscious of its contrac-
tions ; to his brain, till he turns dizzy with a sense
of action within it; to any of his limbs, till they tin-
gle ; to himself, till tremblingly alive all over; and
to his ideas, till he confounds them with realities.
We have remarked that persons of high intellect-
ual endowment are capable of abstracting the at
tention from external objects, and of so applying it
to the objects of thought as to become almost insen-
sible to those of sense. On this power of abstrac-
tion depends the degree and success of ptudious
habit. By it reason expands the scope of her vis-
ion, and acquires increased sagacity in every fresh
exercise of her faculties. Fixing the attention on
abstract truths is like lifting the veil between the
world of sense and the world of spirit. By endeav-
oring to look, we see farther along the vista of life,
and by abstraction we place ourselves in a position
to be actuated by new influences. By striving and
urging after truth, we get more and more familiar
with her footsteps. When we would leam more
of some mystery important to us, we turn away
from all other subjects, and cast our attention in
UNDUE ATTENTION TO THE BODY. 191
upon the consciousness of our own spirits, as if ex
peering there to discover a reply to our inquiry;
and by thus standing, as it were, in the attitude of
expectation, to observe thoughts as they pass before
us, we often discover great secrets, and find our
moral nature enlightened and enlarged by new con-
victions and new desires; for by this mental retire-
ment we become most susceptible of spiritual im-
pressions. But, by some mysterious reaction, this
strong awakening of the mind renders it more con-
scious of the body, when the abstraction is over,
and hence the most intellectual are generally also
the most sensitive of mortals.
Many diseases are produced, increased, and
perpetuated by the attention being directed to the
disordered part; but employment which diverts
the attention from disease, often cures it. Every
one who has had a tooth drawn, knows the charm
of expecting the final agony; a sight of the oper-
ator or the instruments has put the pain to flight.
The celebrated metaphysician, Kant, was able to
forget the pain of gout by a voluntary effort of
thought, but it always caused a dangerous rush of
blood to the head.
We may compare sensibility to a fluid, as
Cabanis did, and suppose it to exist in a deter-
minate quantity, capable of being diverted from
one channel into another, according to the state
of the mind and nervous system; thus causing an
accumulation of exalted sensibility in one part
of the body and a proportionate diminution in
other parts. This state existed in the cases cited
in a former chapter. In ecstasies the brain and
192 UNDUE ATTENTION TO THE BODY.
sympathetic nerves appear to become highly ener-
getic, while the vital feeling seems to have forsaken
other parts of the system. Something akin to this
must have taken place in those violent fanatics,
the Convulsionists of St. Medard, who submitted
with impunity and pleasure to severe wounds
from swords and hatchets, which, in the ordinary
state of sensibility, would have destroyed life. But
these ecstatic and ascetic beings called such blows
their consolations, and entreated to be mangled
and beaten by the strongest men and the largest
weapons.
The mesmeric magic also, by giving a strong
and new determination to the mind, seems to
endow it with new power of action, by calling into
exercise a concentrated or intense sensibility, and
a mode of nervous energy to which the organs
have not been accustomed, and which therefore
induces an apparently supernatural train of phe-
nomena ; for function and orgasm seem to be due
to the unknown agent which confers sensibility and
action upon structure.
The attention being unduly fixed upon the body
itself, instead of being employed in controlling
the limbs and senses in active exercise about the
proper business of life, causes, or at least often ag-
gravates, the morbid consciousness which torments
the hypochondriac. The sensation of disease of
course may precede this, and is perhaps necessary
to the first excitement of attention to the vital
functions in an unnaturally acute manner, but
perverted consciousness commences the instant we
fail to obey the laws of our constitution, which
UNDUE ATTENTION TO THE BODY. 193
require us to attend to other objects rather than
to ourselves. If we use not our faculties on their
proper objects, improper thoughts will present
themselves, and the moral equilibrium will thus
be destroyed by inward and selfish attention, and
the intellectual eyesight become confirmed in its
obliquity; for we are intended to be healthy and
happy only as long as our minds are occupied in
acquiring intelligence from things around us, or
by reciprocal interest with other beings. It would
indeed appear that our Creator designed us to be
employed rather on objects around us, and in as-
sociation with the activities of other minds, than
on the operations of our own; for we find that
our efforts to concentrate attention on the pro-
cess of our own thoughts speedily begets a most
painful confusion; nor can we even summon our
memory for the restoration of a forgotten idea
and search with any diligence for its recovery,
without such fatigue as either compels us soon to
relinquish the pursuit, or else, if we obstinately
persist, induces a nervous headache and imbe-
cility, nearly approaching to aberration of intel-
lect. The mastery over our own minds, except
in obedience to social laws, is denied to us.
Healthy thinking and mental association are one.
If we would think safely we must think naturally;
that is, in relation to others, and our thoughts
must lead to action. There must be a degree of
spontaneous readiness and submission of mind to
the common course of association and feeling.
Not that we possess no power of selecting from
the ideas which present themselves to our imagi
VJ I
/94 UNDUE ATTENTION TO THE BODY.
nation. Far otherwise—the gift and extent of
reason consists in this selection; but the success
with which we employ our faculties depends not
on desire, but on training, that is, on the habit of
our intellect in sympathy with other minds, and
according to our familiarity with facts, appear-
ances, and employments. In short, observation is
the basis of our ability, and outward exertion is
its security;.but self-consciousness, or attentive
analysis of the operations and sensations of our
own minds, endangers the well-being of our rea-
son, and is the frequent cause of insanity. Hence,
then, we learn the paramount importance of our
sympathies being suitably excited, for this is
proper mental cultivation.
To this end it is essential that the growing mind
should be educated in truth under the direction of
those who themselves feel and obey it. The will
of one is influenced by the will of others, and the
union of a body of persons, under the same proper
convictions, is, especially to youthful reason and
affection, the strongest safeguard and most per-
suasive government. Hence the value of some
central truth attracting together individuals, who
will test all their opinions by their one uniting
faith. Christianity is founded on this principle;
for it is a central light which imparts due color
to all objects, and it is evermore successful in
proportion as its one grand truth is insisted on
and believed.
The sanity of society, as well as of individual
minds, is secured only by faith in some common
object of regard, and the commencement both of
UNDUE ATTENTION TO THE BODY. 195
personal and social hypocrisy is the abstraction of
regard from the common interest, for the purpose
of attending to self. Here schism and confusion
begin, but here they do not end; for party spirit,
or endemic hypocrisy, is but extended selfishness,
and personal moral derangement made more gen-
eral and infectious. We see, then, that obedience
alone is safety; but the idea of obedience implies
a belief in the revelation of a supreme will; a pow-
er regarding which we can not dispute; for, as
long as we question the existence of supreme pow-
er and appointment, we deny the right to govern,
even in the Almighty. It follows then, that, in
order to the formation of true moral impressions,
correct thinking, and hence correct conduct, there
must be a true revelation of God's will. The
legitimate end of this argument, then, appears to
be, that, if God has revealed himself, as we believe
He has in nature, naturally, in the Bible, explicitly,
then our business with regard to both revelations
is to learn and to obey, since nothing more is need-
ed for our happiness. In fact our faculties are fit
for nothing else, and if we insist upon employing
them in any other manner, we must meet the pen-
alty—madness and misery.
------------" All declare
For what the Eternal Maker has ordained
The powers of man: we feel within ourselves
His energy divine : he tells the heart
He meant, he made us to behold and love
What he beholds and loves, the general orb
Of life and being—to be great like him,
Beneficent and active."—Akenside.
But to return to the effect of attention on the body.
196 UNDUE ATTENTION TO THE BODY.
There is an artificial mode of producing sleep, by
fatiguing the muscles of the eye, which is effected
by a strained and intent gaze at any object, real or
ideal, viewed under an acute angle. Perhaps, by
this effort, the irritability of those muscles becomes
exhausted, and also that of the optic nerve—the
result is giddiness, mistiness of sight, and, soon after,
sleep. Congestion is induced in the eyes, and car-
ried thence to the optic and other nerves of the
eyes, and, owing to their proximity to the origin of
the nerves of respiration and circulation, sympa
thetically affects these also, and thus enfeebles the
action of the heart and lungs. If the mind resign
itself to sleep, an orderly, 6low breathing takes
place, and the whole body soon becomes com-
posed ; but if mental effort continue to resist the
disposition to drowsiness, another order of phe-
nomena occurs, similar to those frequently arising
from mesmerism. The heart's more feeble action
first produces coldness of the extremities and gen-
eral pallor of the surface ; the blood is consequent-
ly accumulated in the region of the heart. The
brain, and probably the spinal and sympathetic
system of nerves, become congested in consequence,
and then many strange and curious phenomena, re-
sulting from irregularity in the circulation of the
blood and nervous energy, speedily follow. The
inability to raise the upper eyelid, under these cir-
cumstances, arises from a kind of paralysis of its
muscles; a paralysis which is apt, at the same time,
to affect other parts. Of course morbid conscious-
ness, in various organs of the body, is manifested
according to the different modifications of mental
UNDUE ATTENTION TO THE BODY. 197
and bodily constitution in the various persons sub-
jected to such experiments.
A case is related by Dr. George Cheyne, which
affords a very curious illustration of the voluntary
influence of the mind over tho body in modifying
vital action and sensibility. A Colonel Townsend,
residing at Bath, sent for Drs. Baynard and Cheyne,
and a Mr. Skrine, to give them some account of an
odd sensation which he had for some time felt,
which was, that he could expire when he pleased,
and, by an effort, come to life again. He insisted
so much on their seeing the trial made, that they
were forced at last to comply. They all three felt
his pulse, which was distinct and had the usual
beat. He then composed himself on his back for
some time. By the nicest scrutiny they were soon
unable to discover the least sign of life, and at last
were satisfied that he was actually dead ; and were
just about to leave him, with the idea that the ex-
periment had been carried too far, when they ob-
served a slight motion in the body, and gradually
the pulsation of the heart returned, and he quite
recovered. In the evening of the same day, how-
ever, he composed himself in the same manner and
really died. Disease of the heart, under unnatural
attention to the organ, caused tho phenomena.
Cardan must have been subject to some singular
disease, for he says, " Whenever I wish it, I can go
out of my body so as to feel no sensation whatever,
as if I were in ecstasy. When I enter this state,
or, more properly speaking, when I plunge myself
into ecstasy, I feel my soul issuing out of my heart,
and, as it were, quitting i\ as well as the rest of
198 UNDUE ATTENTION TO THE BODY.
my body, through a small aperture formed at first
in the head and particularly in the cerebellum.
This aperture, which runs down the spinal column,
can only be kept open by great effort. In this sit-
uation I feel nothing but the bare consciousness of
existing out of my own body, from which I am dis-
tinctly separated. But I can not remain in this state
more than a very few moments."
Some strange philosophers have entertained so
daring an idea of the mightiness of the will over
the vital organization, as to declare, that if a man
determined not to die, he would not. The will,
however, has scarcely any thing to do with the
matter; for it is a fact, that the bodily condition
immediately preceding death generally produces,
or at least is accompanied by, such a quiescence of
mind, that volition itself seems to slumber or con-
sent to death, and there is almost always after long
and great debility a peaceful anticipation of the
coming event.
CHAPTER V.
MISEMPLOYMENT OF THE MIND.
The foregoing facts forcibly teach us, as indeed
does every man's experience, that rest is as neces-
sary as action, and neither body nor mind continue
fit for the business of this life without an occasional
withdrawal of the will, either in sleep, or in a little
quiet castle-building, or brown-study.
"The understanding takes repose
In indolent vacuity of thought,
And sleeps and is refreshed."
The mind thus proceeds dreamily, and therefore
without that determination of blood to the brain
which the continued exercise of volition and de-
sire always occasions; for the will demands a
large supply of blood in order to evolve nervous
power for the energizing of the muscles, as volition
is peculiarly associated with muscular function,
proving that healthy will is necessarily connected
with bodily activity. This indolent vacuity, how-
ever, may become habitual, and then a legion of
evils of a worse kind crowd in upon the soul, for
irritability takes the place of natural action when
the body is not duly employed.
200 MISEMPLOYMENT OF THE MIND.
Neglect of education often causes pcrmanem
inability to maintain attention. If the faculties
be not strengthened by occasional exercise under
proper teaching, the soul becomes at length the
slave of imagination, and is apt to dally with any
empty fancy that may attract it. Some ignis
fatuus, some foolish glitter of false light, is the
only object likely to be pursued by a person who
has not been taught from childhood the use of
reason, or who has not enjoyed the blessing of
high motives and encouragement imparted by ex-
ample. If such a one read, it is for amusement,
without the smallest power of grasping argument;
and he being, from the idle habit of the brain, at
the mercy of vulgar or ludicrous associations, the
most serious subjects provoke loose ideas, instead
of conducing to thoughtfulness and improvement.
This kind of madness is very common with ill-
educated young persons, before the trials of life
correct their vagrant fancies, and subdue their
selfishness. Frivolity of mind sometimes settles
into permanent insanity in such persons, and a
multiplicity of unmeaning, unprofitable, unapplied
thoughts succeed each other with ungoverned ra-
pidity ; for imagination must act when the will
and judgment decline their duty; and thus at
length the poor, imbecile trifler, by the abuse of
his nervous system, has his life converted into a
miserable dream, and he becomes visibly a fool;
for his form and features, action and expression,
correspond with his mental imbecility. The pur-
suit of sensual exciting and enervating pleasures,
—another turn which the mind not intellectually
MISEMPLOYMENT OF THE MIND. 201
employed is apt to take,—speedily conducts the
giddy youth, as many such cases testify, to the
worst cells of the madhouse. The stock of enjoy-
ment being soon exhausted, the brain becomes
useless; and worn in body and debased in mind,
the wretched victim of imaginative sensuality is
early subjected to every species of morbid sensa-
tion and desire. Having neither taste nor energy
for rational pursuit, without resource in intellect,
affection, or religion, he becomes, at length, the
prey of a terrible despair, which terminates only
in idiocy or death.
Sentimentalism, and all other mental extrava-
gances, are but the different directions which
uncultivated minds are accustomed to take, and
unhappily these dispositions are highly contagious.
" There is nothing so absurd, false, prodigious,
but, either out of affection of novelty, simplicity,
blind zeal, hope and fear, the giddy-headed mul-
titude will embrace it, and without examination
approve it."* All these are evinced by bodily
peculiarities and disorders in keeping with their
mental causes, and thus men's creeds and fancies
are almost expressed in their bodies. The conta-
gion of folly, moreover, spreads widely and rapidly;
because the physical constitution of fallen man is
in direct sympathy with those passions which most
readily manifest themselves in the features, the
attitude, the action, the language, the tone of
voice, the turn of a hand. We are all more or
less moved by what we witness of feeling in
others; and as, when the body is weakened by
* Burton.
202 MISEMPLOYMENT OF THE MIND.
fatigue, nervous disorders—such as hysteria, con
vulsions, and epilepsy—may be communicated to
multitudes by their compliance with the instinct
of imitation; so the powerful exhibition of any
passion or enthusiasm is apt to impress all those
who witness it with a potency, proportioned to the
vigor of their nerves, and the degree of control
which their reason is accustomed to exercise over
their sensations. We may thus readily account
for the wide and almost universal diffusion of the
dancing mania, and other maladies, partaking both
of a moral and a physical character, during the dark
ages, and among people unblessed by the restrain-
ing habits and elevating associations of rational and
religious education. All history is full of evidence
that ignorant minds yield at once to the force of
sensual impressions; and that, because the brain
and nerves, when not governed by indwelling in-
telligence, are predisposed to obey whatever im-
pulse from without may demand their sympathy.
Hence, also, every species of violent emotion is
irresistably propagated among such persons; for
insanity, and the most obstinate forms of nervous
disorder, thus become epidemic; and, like the
swine possessed by the legion of demons, those
who are not fortified by truth rush, one after
another, over the precipice to destruction. When v
considering the influence of sympathy, we shall
find further illustrations of this subject. But not
only are such thoughtless, ill-trained persons apt to
suffer in this manner, but also all who live rather in
lonely speculation than in active usefulness. Such
individuals are exceedingly liable to a disorder
MI3EMPL0YMENT OF THE MIND. 203
called hypochondriasis, which is manifestly con-
nected with bodily disease, arising from injudicious
employment of the brain, in solitary musings and
deep and protracted study, or anxieties without
the relief of frequent social intercourse and cheer-
ful exercise. Luther, speaking of his own tendency
to this malady, arising from excessive and anxious
application, says, " Heavy thoughts do enforce
rheums : when the soul is busied with grievous
cogitations, the body must partake of the same.
When cares, heavy cogitations, sorrows, and pas-
sions, do exceed, then they weaken the body;
which, without the soul, is dead, or like a horse
without one to rule it. But when the heart is at
rest and quiet, then it taketh care of the body.
Whoso is possessed with these trials, should in no
case be alone nor hide himself, and so bite and
torment himself with his and the devil's cogitations
and possessings; for the Holy Ghost saith, ' Wo
to him that is alone.' "
Of course, as the mind is always employed while
a person is awake, one train of ideas can not be
displaced but by substituting another. Hence the
importance of change of place and of object when
the affections or emotions are morbidly excited, or
the nervous system enervated by the continued ac-
tion of one train of thought.
Hypochondriasis presents itself in the most
whimsical forms, in consequence of the morbid
condition of those nerves which conduce to sensa-
tion. Thus some imagine themselves dead, and
others declare their bodies to be the abode of un-
heard-of maladies. One thinks his stomach is full
204 MISEMPLOYMENT OF THE MIND.
of frogs, and he hears them croak; another thinks
his body a lump of butter, and he is afraid to walk
in the sun, lest he should be melted. A lady, who
had led an idle life, imagined herself a pound of
candles, and dreaded the approach of night, fear-
ing the maid should take a part of her for use.
That illusive convictions are all more or less as-
sociated with actual disorder of that part of the
nervous system on which perception depends, is
evident from sensation being so blunted in many
bad cases, that persons so afflicted do not feel any
thing applied to the skin. This is exemplified to
the greatest extent in a case related by Foville. A
man was wounded at the battle of Austerlitz, and
ever after he was insanely convinced that he had
no bodily existence; and there seemed to be no
method of convincing him to the contrary; for, in
fact, he was not sensible of any thing done to his
body, unless he saw the action: feeling was quite
absent. Whether this affection arose from impres-
sion first received on his mind, or on his body, it is
difficult to discover; but it is certain that such mal-
adies are sometimes cured by merely convincing
the mind of its mistake.
Nervous diseases, being disorders of sensation
as well as of will, are to be treated with great pa
tience and forbearance; although the whimsicali
ties of the complaint are frequently so ludicrous
that "to be grave exceeds all power of face."
Many droll stories might be written concerning
them, but who can deem them fit to be laughed at ?
It will be found that nervous exhaustion, from over
attention, or repeated sensation without proper in-
MISEMPLOYMENT OF THE MIND. 205
tervals of rest, is the common cause of this strange
malady. These states of mind may perhaps be
sometimes the result of violent, long-continued, and
irresistible emotion; yet we must not be unmind-
ful that they are frequently the inevitable conse-
quence of neglecting the early discipline of the
will; for the dominion of passion over judgment
generally presupposes a moral dereliction.
The potency of emotion over our bodies is every-
where visible ; for our whole active life is alto-
gether an exhibition of passions at their work, and
our projects and our plans are directed to no other
end than the gratification of desire. The most
restless spirit soonest destroys the body, but the
most bustling is not the busiest soul—mental inten
sity is silent. It is the mind that uses life, and the
law of our earthly existence is equally broken both
by inaction and by excess. The motive power re-
quires regulation ; for whether too rapid or too slow,
if the action be irregular, the machinery is equally
endangered. We are formed for moderation; and
our safety consists only with the steady employment
of vital power under moral restraints; hence, dis-
tinctness of object and purpose is essential to health
of mind, and for the preservation of that orderly ac-
tion of the nervous system without which we are dis-
eased in body also. Every faculty and function,
therefore, requires its appropriate exercise, for inac-
tion is scarcely more liable to be followed by a mor-
bid train of miseries than is disappointed or distracted
activity. The interruption of a mental purpose or
desire involves the material through which the mind
acts in its own disorder, as the machinery suffers
S
206 MISEMPLOYMENT OF THE MIND.
when the power which puts it into motion is fitfully
employed, or unduly excited or misdirected. Our
experience testifies that the greatest mental confu-
sion and distress of brain arise not so much from
steadily continued and determined effort of the
mind, in a rational manner, as fi-om interruption to
the purpose of the will. Thus, when some daily
vexation breaks the chain of thought, or draws the
attention off from the intellectual pursuit on which
the spirit had earnestly been bent, displeasure and
distraction take the place of complacency, and the
cause of the disturbance is apt, when thus fre-
quently returning, to take complete possession of
the mind, and to haunt the attention like a hateful
goblin, blighting the soul with its cloudy presence.
Hence the soured misanthrope often appears when
the philosopher might have been expected; for un-
less the man of thought has his heart soothed by
affectionate and comfortable appliances, in a suita-
ble and seasonable manner, his resolute and per-
plexed spirit, incapable of resting from reflection,
is very likely to find successive vexations terminate
in madness, or some milder form of mental de-
rangement or unhappy eccentricity, which con-
strains him to seek pleasure only in imagination
and with solitude.
Those who are connected with persons consti-
tutionally prone to reflectiveness can not be too
cautious in their manner of opposing the bias of
their dispositions, or too gently endeavor to win
them from the danger of absorbing study, for both
their sensibilities and affections are generally fine
in proportion to the intensity with which they ha-
MISEMPLOYMENT OF THE MIND. 207
bitually contemplate the objects of their attention.
Men of genius, whatever the direction of their
minds, are usually as full of feeling as of thought,
their intellect being urged on under the dominion
of that love which can not rest without constant
approval. Their habit of abstraction may cause
them to appear selfish, unsocial, or absurdly whim-
sical, but they are only engaged too intensely to ex-
hibit in an ordinary manner the appearance of
passing interest. They are, however, exactly those
who are most subject to insanity, as their minds are
kept unavoidably busy to the full extent of nervous
endurance. Yet persons of this deep style of
thinking and feeling are most devoted to the well-
being of others, and are the first to demonstrate
the nobility of their nature by those self-sacrifices
which have distinguished the best names in his-
tory.
Cowper and Byron may be instanced as oppo-
site examples of bad modes of education, termina-
ting in morbid habits of thinking, and exhibiting by
fits and starts the finest traits of generous nature in
the most contrary and inconsistent manners.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAGRIN AND SUICIDE.
We know that determination must vastly excite
the brain when the student or the statesman is in-
duced, by desire for doubtful distinction, to spend
his days and his nights in the distractions of vacil
lating hopes and fears. Under the strain of these
conflicting passions, how many a mighty mind sinks
into insanity, amid the mysterious darkness of
which some demon whispers close upon the ear,
" No hope, no aim, no use in life, the knife is now
before you." Long, however, before this terrific
state of mind occurs, the body gives unheeded
warning of the growing danger, by irregular appe-
tites, tormenting visions, and unaccountable sensa-
tions ; for insanity is always a bodily malady, al-
though perhaps in most cases moral delinquency is
superadded, and the will has been disordered be-
fore the body. Although the destructive propen-
sity may sometimes cause suicide under a sudden
impulse, or it may even arise from a morbid dispo-
sition to imitate, yet it is probable that the irrita-
bility of the body, which allows not a respite to the
soul, fi-om the constant stimulus to attention and
will, most frequently drives tho melancholy maniac
CHAGRIN AND SUICIDE. 209
to commit suicide. Death seems in these cases the
only refuge from the weary vigilance of morbid
sensibility. This awful remedy is frequently sought
under the impulse of a kind of instinct, when the
mind becomes so possessed by its misery as to be
quite incapable of comparing the desire felt with
previous convictions, and so the patient is blindly
urged on, by longing for relief, to use the first op-
portunity for self-destruction which may present
itself, association only serving to connect the means
of death with the idea of escape from a tormenting
body, or some haunting impression. The frequent
connection of the disposition to suicide with the de-
spondent forms of insanity, warrants the supposi-
tion that despair, if not met by the solace of affec-
tion, would always lead its subject to the same dark
resort, as the scorpion is said to destroy itself with
its own sting, when encircled by dangers from which
it can not escape.
The love of approbation, which is closely con-
nected with the love of society, is generally the
strongest of our passions, and is that by which the
lower passions are restrained within the limits of
common decorum. It is the disappointment of this
passion, or chagrin, which most frequently disposes
to suicide. Man's hell is the feeling of solitude, or
the dread of being despised; and if his associates
cast him out of their pale, or appear completely to
excommunicate him from their sympathies, he seems
as if at once possessed by Satan. Should this
wounding of his proud desire deprive him of all
hope of restoration, to the heart at least of some one
being who can love him in spile of his faults, he
14
210 CHAGRIN AND SUICIDE.
will rush unbidden into the darkness of another
world, the apprehension of which is less temble to
him than the loneliness in which he suffers. So
common is this catastrophe, that it appears like the
result of a natural law of the guilty mind, when un
acquainted with divine truth, and unsustained by
the hopeful consciousness of spiritual and eternnl
life. Hence heathenism and infidelity have always
approved self-murder as the proper remedy of ex-
treme vexation.
If we may credit report, it would appear that
mere animals are also impelled by the same feel-
ing under similar circumstances : thus it is related
in the Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet,
the truth of which is avouched by Captain Marry at,
that he saw horses, that had been tyrannized over
by other horses, and treated by the whole herd as
outcasts, commit suicide. When tired of their
paria life, they walk round and round some large
tree, as if to ascertain the degree of hardness re-
quired, measure their distance, and darting with
furious speed against it, fracture their skulls, and
thus get rid of life and oppression together. He
says that squirrels sometimes persecute one among
their number till he destroys himself; and he states,
that " one day while we were watching this outcast
of a squirrel, we detected a young one slowly
creeping through the adjoining shrubs; he had in
his mouth a ripe fruit, at eveiy moment he would
stop and look if he were watched, just as if he
feared detection. At last he arrived near the paria,
or outcast, and deposited before him his offering to
misery and old age. We watched this spectacle
CHAGRIN AND SUICIDE.
211
with feelings which I could not describe: there
was such a show of meek gratitude on the one side,
and happiness on the other, just as if he enjoyed
his good action. They were, however, perceived
by the other squirrels, who sprung by dozens upon
them; the young one with two bounds escaped,
the other submitted to his fate. I rose. All the
squirrels vanished except the victim ; but that time,
contrary to his habits, he left the shrub and slowly
advanced to the bank of the river, and ascended a
tree. A minute afterward, we observed him at the
very extremity of a branch projecting over the rapid
waters, and we heard his plaintive shriek. It was
his farewell to life and misery." This story will
serve as a parable expressive of human conduct—
but one among a multitude runs the risk of showing
kindness to the outcast, while the rest are bent
upon driving the wretched to destruction.
The association between neglect, ill-usage, de-
spondency, and suicide, is of great practical im-
portance, especially in relation to those who suffer
from the terrors of that most awful malady, re-
ligious despair, which usually commences with
seclusion, and a state the reverse of self-com-
placency, conjoined with strong affection insuffi-
ciently regarded.
Happy is it if the suicidal catastrophe be avert-
ed by such a failure of some organ or function of
the body as shall arrest the ambitious, the way-
ward, or the lonely spirit even with the stroke of
death; but more blessed still to find association
with calm and loving minds, and, like Kirke
White, to take admonishment from the uncer-
212 CHAGRIN AND SUICIDE.
tainty and comparative worthlessness of this world's
honors and attachments, to prepare for the untiring
activities of a nobler state.
" Come, Disappointment, come!
Though from hope's summit hurled,
Still rigid nurse thou art forgiven,
For thou severe, wert sent from heaven,
To wean me from the world;
To turn mine eye
From vanity,
And point to scenes of life, that never, never die."
This reference to Kirke White reminds us that
the influence of the mental state is remarkably ex-
hibited in the progress of organic diseases. Medi-
cal practitioners can bear ample testimony to the
fact, that religious feeling, that is, calm resignation
to the supreme will, soothes and tranquilizes the
sufferer's frame more than all medical appliances.
Often does he witness the triumph of faith over
bodily affliction, as consumption for instance, with
slow and fatal hand steals away the Kfe-blood
from the youth who lately, perhaps in the height
of moral danger, adorned the drawing-room, or
bore the palm of academic strife. While in the
bloom and brilliancy of body and mind, when
most sensitive and alive to all the passionate
and beautiful associations of affection and of in-
tellect, the spoiler stealthily crept in, but pre-
viously a light from heaven had entered his heart,
and therefore, while the malady built up the bar-
rier between time and his spirit, the patient re-
lied upon the hand that chastened him; he felt
that pain, and weakness, and weariness, and disap-
pointment, and death are not fortuitous occur-
CHAGRIN AND SUICIDE. 213
rences, but the process by which the wisdom of
God affects the weaning and separation of the
believing soul from sin, sorrow, and distracting
attachments, to fill it forever with intelligence,
peace, and perfection. Hence, with becoming
composure, he submitted to the purifying trial of
his faith, and said, while his features reflected the
divine love which he contemplated—"Even so,
Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight." No
fever of the mind added to the hectic which con-
sumed his body, and the disease was not only
better borne, but really much retarded and ame-
liorated by the " strong consolations" of Christian
faith.
CHAPTER VII.
IRRITABLE BRAIN, INSANITY, ETC.
Many terrible nervous diseases are but the natu-
ral disturbance of a bad conscience. Such a
course of conduct before God and man as secure
approval of heart, will often cure such diseases
without the aid of a physician. The cordial of
daily duty, properly fulfilled, is the proper remedy.
How often have we seen the haggard hypochon-
driac, both in hut and mansion, cured of all his
anomalous maladies by a true view of religion and
by the activity which springs from it. The terrors
that haunted his darkened spirit have been dissi-
pated by the light of Heaven; his shaken nerves
have been tranquilized, and the peace of faith has
brought new brightness into his eye; a pleasant
buoyancy has lifted his heart, and a resistless im-
pulse of good-will has diffused a healthful vigor
through every fiber and every feature. So pow-
erful is the habit of a man's faith on his person,
that sagacious physicians often correctly infer tho
religious state and persuasion from the patient's
appearance.
IRRITABLE BRAIN, ETC. 215
That bodily disorder which favors the mani-
festation of the mind in an insane manner may
be produced by any of our passions, when unre-
strained by a holy understanding; the best bless-
ings may thus be converted into curses—the best
gifts into the most injurious agents. Some say
religion is a frequent cause of insanity. No; true
religion is the spirit of love, of power, and of a
sound mind ; ever active in diversified duties and
delights, always busy in a becoming manner and
in decent order. But the wild notions, unmeaning
superstitions, spiritual bondage, unrequired and
forbidden attempts to reconcile the rites and cere
monies which wayward men have substituted for
the liberty of God, begin in disobedience and end
in darkness. It is strange fire in the censer which
brings down the flaming vengeance, and opens a
passage to the infinite abyss.
Excessive employment of the body, and that
anxiety which springs from too earnest a pur-
suit of our own wills, are, when acting together,
exceedingly likely to disorder the organism of
the mental faculties; and whether one be truly
religious or only superstitious, the result will
be the same; because excess of any kind is
a direct infringement of the invariable law of
God.
Delirium may arise either from mental stimu-
lants or from mental sedatives, in a weakened and
wearied state of the brain. In either case the
same effects follow; as the organization is so dis-
turbed that it consents not in due order to the
force, which, in its proper condition, is formed to
216 IRRITABLE BRAIN, ETC.
actuate it, namely, the mind. To make a mental
exertion when the brain is wearied or unduly ex-
cited, is only to aggravate disorder and endanger
the fine fabric thus violently acted upon. Thus it
is that men of mental determination, under the
force and pressure of urgent business, instead of
yielding to the indications of weariness, continue
to work on till delirium takes the place of healthy
attention. The secretary of an extensive and use-
ful institution, for instance, suffers from bad health;
his mind and heart find no rest at home; at this
juncture the directors call for accounts and a
multitude of correspondents are urgent for replies.
He finds some one of these agents is guilty of
defalcation. He grows miserable; his digestion
fails, he appears flushed and hurried, his head
aches, he can scarcely connect his thoughts, his
hand trembles, he uses wrong words both in
speaking and in writing; he retires, and imme-
diately begins to connect the feeling of his own
inability to attend to business with the idea of
robbing his employers, and at length fancies that
he is the defaulter, by whose case his mind has
been excited. He thinks himself the guilty per-
son, and haunted by the worst consequent phan-
toms, he becomes intolerable to himself, and feels
as if called on to expiate his crime by destroying
his life with his own hand. His pious habit still
prevails, and he executes the horrible deed in
calm and devout resignation to what he deems the
will of Heaven. This is a true case, and is no un-
common result of disobedience to the natural law,
which insists on our seeking rest when wearied,
IRRITABLE BRAIN, ETC. 217
and submitting patiently to infirmity as our daily
portion.
All disobedience to the Divine laws, whethei
natural or moral, must, of course, be inevitably fol-
lowed by suffering and disorder; nor can any one
who exposes himself to its causes be exempt, un-
less by miracle, from insanity or hallucination, as
long as mind acts through matter, and manifests
itself in keeping with its condition.
Remarkable intellectual energy is so often asso
ciated with enthusiasm, or intensity of mental char-
acter and extravagance of conduct, that it has be-
come a proverb : " Great wit to madness is allied."
And probably the excessive activity of mind some-
times springs fi-om actual disorder of brain, although
the habit and education of the will of the individual
may enable him so far to control its influence as that
a degree of disease which, in another worse train-
ed, might produce decided symptoms of insanity,
shall, in this case, only prove a powerful stimulus
to manageable imagination. The susceptibility of
genius to the excitement of society generally be-
trays itself in eccentricities, which minds less en-
dowed regard with amazement; as if these odd
traits were some inexplicable mystery and contra-
diction, instead of the necessary result of the nerv
ous tension, to which such morbid beings are con-
stantly subject. It may appear, at first sight, un-
reasonable to connect genius with disease, but an
intimacy with the history of notable men will dem-
onstrate their relation to each other; not that they
are necessarily associated, as cause and conse
quence, but that the direct operation of intense
T
218 IRRITABLE BRAIN, ETC.
motives, such as stimulate master minds, leads to
disorder of the brain, and disorder of the brain re-
acts to maintain a perverted bias or injurious habit
of application. Those who are restrained in their
ambitious or pleasurable pursuits by moral or re-
ligious principles, are happily preserved from the
danger of catering to the public appetite for mar-
velous, monstrous, and startling exhibitions of tal-
ent; but gifted persons, who submit to the enor-
mous demand, and ransack the regions of invention
for new wonders and striking combinations, are
always running the risk of losing the mastery over
their own faculties, simply because it is a law of
the human mental constitution to confirm a chosen
habit into an absolute necessity; because the brain,
constantly used in one manner, whether naturally
or artificially, can not act in any other; but, en-
thralled by a task-tyrant of its own choice, it works
on in chains like a galley-slave, and dies early of
its chosen toil. This effect of habit in determining
genius accounts for the progress of deception un-
der the control of designing men of great enthu-
siasm, such as Mohammed and Joseph Smith,
the inventor of Mormonism. They began by
some trick to help themselves, and thus discover-
ing their power over the simple-minded, they per-
sisted in deception till they became unable to
think or act but as deceivers. At length, prob-
ably, the habit was confirmed by their becoming
insane converts to their own lies, believing the
whims of their own imaginations to be the espe
cial revelations of Heaven. Like a horse in a mill,
the mind thus goes round and round in the same
IRRITABLE BRAIN, ETC. 219
circle, till it turns blind and incapable of straight-
forward exertion. Its very dreams are of the
beaten track.
An accumulated irritability of brain results from
incessant effort of mind ; and to such an extent are
poets subject to this infirmity that they have won
the cognomen of a distinct race—genus irritabile.
But all imprudent thinkers are obnoxious to the
same suffering. Even our great philosopher, New
ton, sometimes gave vent to ill-temper or soothed
his nerves by the bane of tobacco, instead of taking
rest or appropriate change. And many of our best
artists, whether in words or more solid materials,
have been martyrs to head ache and the fashion of
excitement. Thus Wilkie was often obliged to
shut himself up in a dark room, because light was
too stimulant for his brain, and Paganini paid dear-
ly for his consummate excellence as a musician.
Speaking to a friend, he stated that he scarcely
knew what sleep was; and his nerves were wrought
to such almost preternatural acuteness, that harsh,
even common sounds, often became torture to him.
Ho was sometimes unable to bear a whisper in his
room. His passion for music he described as an
all-absorbing, a consuming one; in fact he looked
as if no other life than that ethereal one of melody
were circulating in his veins; but he added, with a
glow of triumph kindling through deep sadness—
" Mais c'est un don du del."*
Byron, after an intellectual debauch, was ac-
customed to mope in total laziness. What this
intense poet says of himself is very instructive—
* Mrs. Hemans's Life."
220 IRRITABLE RRAIN, ETC.
" I feel a disrelish more powerful than indifferenr*.
If I rouse, it is into a fury. I presume I shall end
like Swift—dying at top. But Swift had hardly
begun life at the very period (thirty-three) when I
feel quite an old sort of feel. I have been consid-
ering why I always awake at a certain hour in the
morning, and always in very bad spirits—I may
say in actual despair and despondency in all re-
spects. I have drank fifteen bottles of soda
water in one night, after going to bed, and
still been thirsty. A dose of salts has the ef-
fect of a temporary inebriation, like light cham-
pagne, upon me. But wine and spirits make
me sullen and savage to ferocity; silent, how-
ever, and retiring, and not quarrelsome if not
spoken to."
These facts prove that his genius was associated
with a diseased brain, of which, indeed, he died;
but whether the disease was the result of undue
mental action, or the cause of it, we need not now
inquire : it is sufficient to point out the connection.
Byron is but a strong example of the poetic tem-
perament, and in many respects of the other orders
of genius also, for they are all distinguished by
extraordinary determination of will; subject, how-
ever, to paroxysms, like an intermittent fever, a
succession of cold and hot fits, with healthier inter-
vals, since the nervous system will not tolerate a
constant enthusiasm. All violence is but the ex-
ception to natural order, and the mighty afflatus or
mental inspiration, which the world so much ad-
mires, can no more be commanded or expected as
a matter of course, than can the hurricane or the
IRRITABLE BRAIN, ETC. 221
earthquake; and their continuance is alike de-
structive.
Virgil's description of the inspired Pythoness
presents a glowing picture of the mind's excite-
ment, kindling the body, for a time, into unnatural
action, and then leaving it exhausted and power-
less,—an effect that equally follows every great,
enthusiastic, intellectual, or passionate exertion of
the will.
" Aloud she cries
This is the time ! inquire your destinies,
He comes ! behold the god ! Thus while she said
(And shivering at the sacred entry staid),
Her color changed ; her face was not the same,
And hollow groans from her deep spirit came.
Her hair stood up ; convulsive rage possessed
Her trembling limbs, and heaved her laboring heart;
Greater than human kind she seemed to look,
And with an accent more than mortal spoke ;
Her staring eyes with sparkling fury roll,
When all the god came rushing on her soul;
Swiftly she turned, and foaming as she spoke,
At length her fury fell; her foaming ceased,
And ebbing in her soul the god decreased."
The common sense of mankind, before the ma-
terialists extinguished the soul, which gave life
even to the doctrines of heathens, naturally as-
cribed all bodily and mental agitations to some
indwelling spirit, and regarded visible actions as
the result of invisible agencies, so as always to con-
nect the physical with the spiritual; and doubtless,
therefore, they more firmly realized the fact of
their immediate relation to an immaterial exist-
ence. A far more beautiful and ennobling philos-
ophy was theirs than the mere materialists enjoy,
222 IRRITABLE BRAIN, ETC.
because nearer that of divine truth than the notion
that traces mind no farther than to chemical affini-
ties, and views the death of the vigilant soul in the
destruction of its dwelling-place.
Dr. Wollaston, who was a Christian philosopher,
died of disease of the brain. He preserved to the
close of his life the philosophic habit of observation
which distinguished his character. Sublime is the
lesson, to see how he exercised the higher faculties
of his intellect in reasoning on the causes and prog-
ress of his malady, in the disorder of his sensations,
memory, and the power of motion, as it advanced
in its incursion upon one part after another of those
portions of the brain which subserve the mind in
relation to will and consciousness. He noted the
phenomena of death, as it gradually took posses-
sion of his body, and experimented on his faculties
to ascertain the amount of living power remaining.
Here we witness an intelligent being watching the
gradual destruction of the instruments with which
it was accustomed to seek and communicate intel-
lectual enjoyment. The spirit takes its last look
at its material residence, and seems voluntarily to
withdraw from an abode so incommodious, while
reasoning about the causes of its unfitness. Up
to the very verge of this life's horizon we see that
the willing and reasoning man remains a willing
and reasoning being still. Shall we dare to say
we have traced the footsteps of that man to the
limit of his being] As well might we say a star is
extinguished because it has set to our sight. The
invisible spirit evinced itself here by using earthly
elements, and in wise communion with the won-
IRRITABLE BRAIN, ETC. 223
ders of creative skill, and its departure was but an-
entrance into existence more in keeping with its
nature. What the philosopher observed decaying
was not himself, the observer, and that which died
was not that which enjoyed life.
CHAPTER VIII.
A GENERAL VIEW OF THE EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS
ON HEALTH.
Our passions are the grand conservators as well
as disturbers of the healthy action of our bodies;
and they exercise so direct an influence over the
functions of life as to be properly classified with
medicinal agents. Indeed they often act with no
less power than the most heroic medicines, and are
as rapid, and sometimes as fatal in their operation,
as prussic acid or any other deadly poison. A
brief review of the prominent effects of our passions
on our bodies will afford a striking illustration of
the independent existence of the mind, and at the
same time present a subject of the highest practical
consideration. Medically speaking, the emotions
are regarded either as depressing or exciting,—
sedative or stimulant; but probably their influence,
although always acknowledged, is yet too generally
undervalued in the treatment of disease.
Hope is the cordial by which our benevolent
Creator cheers every heart that is not resolutely
set against the reception of his goodness. A re-
markable, and consequently often-quoted instance,
of the curative influence of hope occurred during
EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS ON HEALTH. 225
the siege of Breda, in 1625, when the garrison
was on the point of surrendering from the ravages
of scurvy, principally induced by mental depression.
A few vials of sham medicine were introduced,
by order of the Prince of Orange, as an infallible
specific. It was given in drops, and produced as-
tonishing effects. Such as had not moved their
limbs for months before were seen walking in the
streets—sound, straight, and well.
Not to refer to the long list of pseudo-miracles
by royal touch, and at the tombs of common saints,
sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, with the
cure of every sickness, were said to have been
conferred on the faithful devotees who flocked to
the tomb of Abbe Paris, the famous Jansenist;
and, what is most extraordinary, these cases were
proved on the spot, before judges of integrity, at-
tested by witnesses of credit in a learned age (a.d.
17:21), and on the most eminent theater in the
world. Among a multitude of similar cures, it is
testified that a hunch-backed girl was kicked and
trampled into a beautiful shape, by being stretched
on the ground, while a number of stout men trod
and jumped with all their might on her stomach
and ribs. The treatment was in all cases of so
rough a kind that it required a confidence amount-
ing to lunacy to submit to it, and the exercise of a
power as supernatural at least, if not as deceptive,
as Satan's, in order to survive it. However, as
Pascal said, " we must believe those who are ready
to have their throats cut to prove their faith." The
priests appealed to the remains of their saint in at-
testation of their own sanctity, and of course mira-
15
226 EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS
cles followed; and then what more natural than
that the lame, the halt, and the blind, should, in
hopeful crowds, surround the wonder-working
bones of St. Paris'? What more natural, except
that many of them, under the violent persuasion of
their own desire, and many heavy blow.-;, should
speedily depart miraculously healed 1
Eloquence is not needed to describe the mighti-
ness of Hope. She speaks for herself to every
mortal, and supplies, gratis, to every sufferer a
well-authenticated universal remedy; far safer, in-
deed, without the vaunted vegetables, aloes and
gamboge, than with them. It may be indulged
with little risk, which can not be said of wholesale
Morrisonian pill-taking, nor even of the recent but
now exploded catholicon brandy and salt. Hope,
like an angel, can concentrate her healing virtue in
a homoeopathic globule, or diffuse it through all the
multitudinous baths, douches, and wet bandages
of hydropathic establishments. Her bright face is
seen in every stream. If we listen, wo hear her
voice whenever the breath of heaven visits us.
" Hope, enchanted, smiles and waves her golden
hair," as she dances before us on the hills and in
the valleys; health and laughter are in her steps,
and while we gaze upon her joyous beauty a lithe-
some spirit animates 'our limbs, and the blooming
hilarity of her features is reflected from our own.
Fear is also sometimes curative. The great
Boerhaave had a number of patients seized with
epileptic fits in a hospital, from sympathy with a
person who fell down in convulsions before them.
This physician was puzzled how to act, for the
ON HEALTH.
227
sympathetic fits were as violent and obstinate as
those arising from bodily disease ; but, reflecting
that they were produced by impression on the
mind, he resolved to eradicate them by a still
stronger impression, and so directed hot irons to
be prepared and applied to the first person who
subsequently had a fit; the consequence was, that
not a person was seized afterward.
An officer in the Indian army was confined to
his bed by asthma, and could only breathe in an
erect posture ; but a party of Mahrattas broke into
tho camp, and fearing certain death, he sprung out
with amazing activity, mounted his horse, and used
his sword with great execution, although the day
before he could not draw it from its scabbard. A
beautiful example of the curative operation of affec-
tionate apprehension is given by Wordsworth, in
his singular story of the Idiot Boy.
Hildanus relates that a man, disguised as a
ghost, took another laboring under severe gout,
from his bed, and carried him on his back down
the stairs, dragging his painful and swollen feet
down the steps, and placed him on the ground. He
immediately recovered the use of his limbs, and
swiftly ran up stairs under the strongest terror, and
never had the gout again. In these cases fear act-
ed with all the stimulating force of necessity, which
is proverbially powerful.
But the gentler and more pleasing emotions
sometimes effect the same apparently miraculous
restoration. The case of an old man, who labored
under shaking palsy, was related by Mr. Kingdon,
at the Medical Society of London. This person
228 EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS
had been long unable to walk. The chnd of a
friend was admitted to see him, and so greatly de-
lighted was he that he arose, walked across the
room, took some paper, went to another part of
the room, filled the paper with small shells, gave
it to the child, and then sat down as paralytic as
before.
Terror causes the blood suddenly to leave the
extreme parts of the frame; the countenace be-
comes livid, the brain excited, the large arteries
distended, the heart swells, the eyes start, the mus-
cles become rigid or convulsed, and faintness, and
perhaps sudden death, ensue. Fear, whether it be
from a real or an imaginary object, is equally in-
fluential on the body. A woman had her gown
bitten by a dog; she had heard of hydrophobia,
and immediately fancied that she had it; and, what
is most surprising, she actually died of symptoms
so like canine madness, that skillful physicians
could not discover any difference. John Hunter,
the celebrated anatomist, attributed the disease of
the heart, of which he ultimately died in a fit of
anger, to the fear of having caught hydrophobia
while dissecting the body of a patient who died of
that disease. Dr. Holland states that a young man
was so severely affected by the continual intrusion
of illusory images of a frightful kind, that in a few
weeks his hair turned from black to white.
As recollected ideas often follow the same train
as when first impressed, a lively remembrance of
past effects is apt to renew the same actions of the
body. PrDbably the same state of nerve is again
produced. Hence the dispositions to repeat ac-
ON HEALTH.
229
lions in an accustomed manner. Van Swietan in-
forms us of a child, being frightened into epilepsy
by a large dog leaping on it, in whom the fit re-
turned whenever the dog was heard to bark. Had
the child been capable of mental effort, the associa-
tion might perhaps have been broken; as we find
that epilepsy is often arrested by diverting the nerv-
ous power by some strong voluntary action of the
body, or other determination of the will; and hence
too, several popular remedies for this disease exert
a powerful influence over it, by their effect on the
imagination ; as that of the hand of a felon, recently
hanged, applied to the patient's brow while on the
scaffold. The hand of a murderer, applied while
hanging from the gibbet, is said to be especially
efficacious. For the same purpose, Pliny advised
the blood of a dying gladiator, drank warm, and
Scribonius Largus directs a portion of his liver to
be eaten. Aretaeus prefers the raw heart of a coot
and the brain of a vulture. The nail taken fi-om
the arm of a crucified malefactor was an efficacious
amulet according to Alexander. Not two centu-
ries since, the authentic remedy among English
physicians, was the lichen which grew on a decay-
ing human skull.
Other nervous disorders are cured on the princi-
ple of breaking the mental association; thus cramp
is cured by rings made from the nails of an old
coffin, and all sorts of nerve-ache are now within
reach of art, since the magic galvanic rings of cop-
per and zinc, a mixture which must have prevailed
in the constitutions of their inventors, are declared
to be nothing short of miraculous, but of course
U
230 EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS
they are intended especially for those who have
only heard of science.
There is no doubt, however, that a feeling of
awe will modify the circulation, and probably the
mystery-men or medecins of the American Indians,
with its help, perform cures almost as wonderful
as those ascribed to Parr's life pills, or any other
imposing pretension. Hence, also, the potency of
charms. This feeling of awe seems to partake
somewhat of the nature of horror, which is demon-
strated to act powerfully on the blood-vessels, as is
seen not only in the pallid appearance of individu-
als suffering from it, but also in the common suc-
cess of a vulgar remedy for haemorrhage, namely,
a living toad hung about the neck. The disgusting
contact almost instantly arrests slight bleedings.
But, perhaps, this remedy is not more efficacious
than the cold key; and it certainly is not more in
demand, and, therefore, it may be presumed not
more successful among our peasantry than the vil-
lage blood-stancher, who is generally some shrewd
old woman that sees a little through her neighbors,
and is near akin to a witch. She is " great myste-
ry," as the Indians say, and arrests bleedings by an
awful manner, a muttered, unmeaning prayer, and
a call for faith.
Extreme joy and extreme terror act in a man-
ner equally energetic. Occasionally the exhaustion
produced by them is so sudden that the nervous
system seems to be discharged of its power in an
instant. Culprits have received the tidings of par-
don, when standing under the gallows, and have
fallen dead in a moment as by a lightning stroke.
ON HEALTH.
231
That most stimulating of the passions, anger,
rouses the heart, produces a glow all over the body,
especially in the face; causes the eyes to glare;
strengthens the voice, and increases the muscular
power; hence it has now and then suddenly cured
gout and palsy, but much more frequently it has
proved fatal, by rupturing some blood-vessel. The
blood, fevered by rage, rushes with delirium over
the burdened brain ; the heart for a while beats
fiercely, but " the acrid bile soon chokes the fine
ducts;" every vessel is exhausted; the irritability
ceases; every muscle shakes; the whole strength
is prostrated; and then, if palsy do not happen,
obstinate faintings ensue; then convulsions—then
death—and the angry man meets his God face to
face.
Broussais and other eminent physiologists are of
opinion that rage is capable of generating a most
virulent and subtil poison, especially in the saliva.
They refer to numerous instances in which wounds
from enraged animals have been followed by effects
only to be accounted for by supposing a virus com-
municated. This opinion coincides with vulgar
belief, and if true, as facts seem to affirm, the pow
er of the mind in altering the chemistry of life in a
direct manner is thus most clearly demonstrated.
But, indeed, the same fact is equally evinced by
the common influence of emotion over secretion.
The classical reader will remember Ovid's fine de-
scription of Envy.
" Pallor in ore sedet; macies in corpore toto ;
Nusquam recta acies; livent rubigine dentes:
Pectora felle virent; lingua est suffusa venemo."
232 EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS
The description of a well-known disease will noc
be here out of place. It begins with indulgence in
despondency, then follow loss of appetite, constant
pain in the stomach, difficulty of breathing, pale-
ness of the face and palms of the hands, whiteness
of the tongue with inky spots on it, white lips, and
inability to move. Then the white of the eye be-
comes glassy, the skin turns of an olive color and
cold to the touch, water collects in every part of
the body, and the sufferer can not breathe, except
in an erect position. The glands then become in-
flamed, the liver hardened; and the blood, poor,
vapid, and colorless, no longer stimulates the heart,
and death soon terminates the scene. This is not
the home-sickness, or nostalgia, which sprung up
among the Swiss soldiers at the sound of their na-
tive music, from a passion for home; and which
the kindliest associations often failed to cure, with-
out returning to the hills and valleys, the sights and
sounds, the domestic enjoyments, and familiar de-
lights, so endeared to the heart by the strong sym-
pathies of childhood, as to localize the spirit of the
man and fill his memory with so delicious a sense
of what he loved and had lost, that his soul could
perceive no joy but in home, sweet home ! The
malady above described is a more violent dis-
ease of the same kind, and it is dignified by the
title Cachexia Africana, because, alas! it has
killed thousands on thousands of the children of
Africa, when " forced from home and all its pleas-
ures."
Are there not, however, many among us no less
pitiable, the victims of frivolity, of fashion, of evil
ON HEALTH. 23.T
genius, of anxious and ungodly trade, and of every
vice; led captive at the will of him who pays
his slaves for all their toils with grievous pen-
alty and death, without the hope of home be-
yond it ?
The slow fever of anxiety presents the Pro-
tean symptoms which everywhere obtrude them-
selves.
" The broad consumptive plague
Breathes from the city to the farthest hut."
And its ravages are miserably visible in the union
houses, dispensaries, and hospitals of our land.
Every madhouse also furnishes instances of its
effects ; and, moreover, strangely presents the most
terrible examples of remorse and religious despair;
proving that Christianity is often taught by mis-
taken men rather as a system of terror than as
good news of gracious forgiveness to all those who
faithfully repent.
Fear and anxiety affect all the functions of the
body, but especially of the stomach. They seem
to suppress the secretion of the fluid on which
digestion depends, and also arrest the flow of sa-
liva. A curious illustration of this fact is afforded
in the method which the conjurers in India some-
times adopt for detecting theft among servants.
When a robbery has been committed a conjurer
is sent for, and great preparations are made. If
m a few days the property be not restored, he pro-
ceeds with his mysterious operations, one of which
is as follows:—The suspected are all required to
masticate a quantity of boiled rice for some time,
and then to spit it upon separate leaves for in-
234 EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS
spection. He examines the masticated rice very
knowingly, and immediately points out the culprit;
the rice which he masticated being perfectly diy,
while that which was masticated by the others is
moistened by saliva.
Deferred and fruitless longing for a beloved
object is a frequent malady which often tends to
produce a remarkable deterioration of the blood,
thus of course impairing the function of every
organ. As the nervous system is most susceptible,
the evil is first revealed by distressing nervous
sensations. All periods and all conditions of life
are liable to this disease ; but the more artificial
the society the more prevalent the malady; that
being considered the most natural society in which
the natural affections are most suitably engaged.
The prosperous fulfillment of our proper desires
is not only the best preservation of the joys of re-
lationship and the blessings of the social compact,
but the best security for the health of body and of
mind, both in parent and offspring; for the state
of the blood, on which health mainly depends, is
influenced almost as much by our feelings as by
our food.
The grand struggle of the multitude is excited
neither by ambition nor covetousness; nor that
nicer torment, a morbid love of approbation, which
racks the sensitive genius; nor by the delirium
of an entrancing affection, nor by the tyranny of
grosser passion;—but the common aim of the
majority in their daily toil, is rather for means to
sustain a bare and comfortless existence. The
weariness of the scarcely successful effort is visible
ON HEALTH.
235
in almost every face. The vast increase of heart
and nervous diseases arises from the distracting
excitement and stretch of mind which now pre-
vails throughout society, especially in large cities,
where great competition exists, and where an un-
certain commerce furnishes a precarious support,
and wealth and pride too often take mean advan-
tages of laborious poverty.
The votaries of pleasure are scarcely more ex-
posed to the causes of mental disquietude than
the devotees of Mammon, and both alike waste
the energies of life in excitement, and alike suffer
the penalty of breaking those laws which natu-
rally regulate the uses both of mind and body.
The gambling spirit as constantly haunts the ex-
change and corn-market as the play-table ; and,
by perplexing and distracting the mind, soon
saps the basis of health and anticipates old age.
Hence, in large commercial towns, we often wit-
ness, even in persons who have barely reached the
middle period of life, the haggard face, sunken
eye, hoary hair, and feeble gait, which properly
belong to " .wearied eld." Nor can the results
be surprising to those who reflect that anxiety is
but a chronic kind of fear; a sort of intermittent
fever or ague, which as manifestly disorders the
circulation and secretions as that which arises from
the poisonous malaria of the marshes, and which
is scarcely more deadly than that of the market, in
these days of desperate speculation and grasping
monopoly.
As Syrach says, " Sorrow also killeth many
people, and melancholy consumeth marrow and
236 EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS
bone." We have all heard of those who have bo
come
" Gray-haired with anguish in a single night."
But that is but a small part of the bodily evidence
of mental agony.
Grief has a very marked influence over the cir-
culation ; probably by its direct action on the
heart, which may be so violently affected as really
to break, not metaphorically but physically. Pro-
longed distress of mind invariably produces a great
preponderance of the venous over the arterial
blood; hence there arises a general feebleness.
We are assured, on the testimony of their medical
attendants, that convicts frequently die of broken
hearts, and it requires more than ordinary care
and skill to restore them to any degree of health,
if once attacked by illness; as the absence of hope,
especially among those transported for life, causes
them to sink rapidly, whatever be the disease.
They seldom recover, or, if partially restored, it is
only to relapse from the slightest circumstances,
and such as would not in the least affect persons
enjoying liberty and hope.
Strong emotion often produces the germ of
disease, which for a long time may not become
apparent. The majority of what arc called nerv-
ous diseases are probably of this class. Some
grief, like a thorn at the heart, as Hippocrates
says, by its secret and incessant in nation gradu-
ally wears out the vital energy. Some vulture
preys upon almost every heart, and it needs not
the pride and ambition of a Napoleon, fastened
to the lonely rock, to feel its gnawings, for dis-
ON HEALTH.
237
appointment as keenly follows every intense and
absorbing passion.
Every part of the body testifies to the potency of
emotions over the organism of life, though the phys-
iologist may not always detect their effects in visible
lesions or alterations. The first causes, or earliest
physical impressions of disorder, are indeed beyond
the ken of the dissector. In vain he searches into
minute anatomy for the cause of functional de-
rangement ; it must be sought among agents which
he can not handle. An idea has frequently force
enough to prostrate the strongest man in a moment.
A word has blasted all his dearest, fondest, most
habitual hopes. His only child has died—the part-
ner of his life is snatched away;—he has but heard
it; nothing has touched his body, but the " iron
has entered his soul." He reels—he trembles—
some demon grasps his brain—sleep is gone—he
dares not look at the light. A dull pain and a
heavy cloud fix themselves over his eyes, and if
the efforts of nature and art are unavailing, or if
the balmy spirit of religion breathe not healing
through his soul, and speedily bind up the broken
heart, some fatal malady of the brain more or less
rapidly ensues, and the man of energy and affec-
tion becomes an outcast from society till death re-
leases his spirit.
Next to the brain the stomach suffers from con-
tinued mental distress. The appetite fails; diges-
tion is suspended; atrophy succeeds, and perhaps
some nerve-ache racks the sufferer. Sometimes
pulmonary consumption, or disease of the heart,
the liver, or the bowels, is induced. The secre-
238 EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS
tions are, of course, proportionally affected. Thus
the milk of a nurse is often entirely suppressed by
mental disquietude. Hence a nervous, excitable
woman is hardly fit to suckle her own children;
for the fluid that should nourish her infant under-
goes so many changes, from the mother's mental
variations, as greatly to distress the child, and per-
haps even to destroy it. Ninety-eight out of a hun-
dred deaths from convulsions are of children, thus
proving them to be especially liable to this disor-
der ; and as the majority die in early infancy, it is
not unlikely that the state of the mother's mind
may be the secret cause of this unnatural mor-
tality.
Under mental depression the nervous energy be-
comes exhausted, the conservative power of nature
is wanting, and the body is rendered especially ob-
noxious to external influences.
Captain Ross, in the narrative of his arctic voy-
age, particularly alludes to the circumstance of
mental depression increasing susceptibility to cold.
The disastrous retreat from Moscow also affords a
striking and extensive instance. This kind of sus-
ceptibility to "the skyey influences" is most mark-
ed, but it equally exists in other forms; thus those
who are depressed by any cause are most likely to
take contagious diseases.
Now look at him who is emphatically the miser :
that is the wretch. He seems as if all his affec-
tions had been congealed by a dip in Lethe, as Dr.
M. Good observes. Yet some demon of anxiety,
some cunning fiend, sits like a nightmare on his
bosom and will not let him sleep, while whispering
ON HEALTH.
239
in his ear of robberies and of destitution. No cor-
dial cheers—no wealth makes him comfortable—
he grows thinner and thinner—his limbs totter and
his nerves ache. Even if the charitable, whom he
cheats, consent to feed him, though in the home of
plenty, he can not gather strength; his soul starves
him. This poor, pitiable being has been the sub-
ject of sarcasm from age to age; but many who
laugh and point the finger at him are doubtless his
descendants, for they bear a strong family like-
ness in their features, even to him of whom Va-
lerius Maximus relates, that he took advantage
of a famine to sell a mouse for two hundred
pence, and then died famished, with the money in
his pocket.
Duty to our neighbor, our country, and our
God, requires us to be diligent in business and
fervent in spirit. With a right motive, we shall
find our utmost efforts to be healthy and happy;
but are there not many, however, who ask not
with a mockery of prayer for their daily bread,
until they have plotted some scheme upon their
beds by which they may file a fortune from the
wages of industry, or cheat their less crafty breth-
ren of some part of their due portion 1 How can
these be healthy ? Perhaps it is possible that such
contrivers may be rubicund in their success, but it
is more likely that the money-mania will at last
absorb all the cheering springs of kindly sympa-
thy, and leave them weak and weary in the dry
desert of their selfishness,—their whole being a
disease.
This is a common termination of a vicious course,
240 EFFECTS OF THE PASSIONS ON HEALTH.
whatever form of selfishness the vice assume; fo
vice is always selfish, and, therefore, apt to be in
creasingly anxious and wretched, till habit dries
the heart up in despair.
CHAPTER IX.
SYMPATHY.
Sympathy is the natural check which the Al-
mighty puts upon uncharitable self. In spite of
themselves, there are few who have not felt com-
passion for others. This affords a beautiful proof
both of the beneficence of our Maker, and of the
power of mind over the body.
Pity, like love, imparts a sedate tenderness to the
carriage, and if it can not be relieved, the face be-
comes pale and wan, the appetite fails, and the
slumber is invaded with frightful dreams, and thus
a broken heart from pity as fi-om grief is no fiction.
Mr. Quain detailed the following case of sympa-
thy at the Westminster Medical Society. A gen-
tleman who had constantly witnessed the sufferings
of a friend afflicted with stricture of the assophagus,
had so great an impression made on his nervous
system, that after some time he experienced a sim-
ilar difficulty of swallowing, and ultimately died of
the spasmodic impediment produced by merely
thinking of another's pain.
A curious and interesting effect of pathetic feel-
ing is the production of tears, which are never gen-
erated but by sorrow or sympathy. There is a
particular nerve supplying that part which causes
16 X
242
SYMPATHY.
the formation of tears, and it seems to be naturally
stimulated only by the suffering of the mind. It is
commonly observed that deep grief is apt to be
dangerous if the brain be not relieved by tears; in
fact, it indicates that the blow has been so severe
as to parafize that part of the nervous system which
causes them to flow. Hence we so often hear lam-
entations from the wounded heart that it can ob-
tain no relief from its overwhelming sorrow, be-
cause the fountain of tears seems dried up.
There is a form of sympathy which compels us
to imitate what we witness in others. This ten-
dency is greatly aggravated under certain circum-
stances, as when persons are secluded from the do-
mestic and social duties of life. Thus a French
medical practitioner of great merit relates, that, in
a convent of nuns, one of the fair inmates was
seized with a strange impulse to mew like a cat,
and soon the whole sisterhood followed her exam-
ple, and mewed regularly every day for hours to-
gether. This diurnal caterwauling astounded the
neighborhood, and did not cease to scandalize more
rational Christians, until the nuns were informed
that a company of soldiers were to surround the
convent, and to whip all the holy sisterhood with
rods till they promised to mew no more: a reme-
dy which would be equally serviceable in many
other mental epidemics.
Cardan relates that, in another nunneiy, a sis-
ter was impelled to bite her companions, and this
disposition also spread among the sisterhood; but
instead of being confined to one nunneiy, it spread
from cloister to cloister throughout the whole of
SYMPATHY'.
243
Europe. There is a kind of biting mania, not con-
fined to nunneries or to the fair sex, and which
may often be witnessed in almost every coterie; it
is backbiting; a malignant sort of insanity, which
spreads worse than the plague, and disorders alike
the body and the mind, both collectively and indi-
vidually.
Morbid and imitative sympathy is scarcely less
powerful among men than women, but it usually
takes a»different form in the different sexes : a good
example has already been given in the case of epi-
leptic fits.
The dancing mania of the fourteenth century in-
fected men almost as readily as women. We have
but to witness a congregation of Jumpers at their
devotions, or even a mob of senseless partisans at
a stoutly-contested election, to be convinced that
the contagion of sympathy finds the presence of the
lordly sex no barrier to its extension. The evils
of this kind of contagion, in connection with irra-
tional enthusiasm, whether excited by true rebVion
or by delusive assumptions, are of a nature to de-
mand our most serious consideration, because the
interests of truth are often sacrificed in consequence
of confounding her accidental with her constant
effects. In 1800, a blaze of apparently religious
enthusiasm spread with great velocity through
many parts of the United States. It began in a
crowded congregation, who were rendered pecu-
liarly susceptible by extreme fatigue and ignorance.
After remaining in the same spot day and night,
instead of worshiping, they commenced crying
laughing, singing, and shouting, with every variety
244 SYMPATHY.
of convulsive contortion and gesticulation. They
continued to act from necessity whatever character
they had assumed from choice, and the disease ex-
tended in every direction with vast rapidity, as an
affected person frequently communicated it to the
greater part of a crowd collected by curiosity around
him.
Children are more especially liable to this sort
of sympathy, of which instances must be familiar to
every reader. The fact, however, is of vast import
ance in connection with the training of children, as
a single evil example may counteract all our teach-
ing. The imitative propensity is frequently exhib
ited in the diseases of children. A writer in the
British and Foreign Medical Review states that he
was consulted respecting a child who, when spoken
to, instead of answering, always repeated what was
said. Degrees of this disease are very common.
The same writer mentions a case, elsewhere pub-
lished, in which an adult had from infancy irresisti-
bly imitated all the muscular movements of those
about him. When this dotterel-like propensity
was forcibly restrained, he complained that his
heart and brain were vexed.
It is this imitative tendency which favors the
rapid propagation of fanatic outrage, whether po-
litical or religious, whether of Jumpers or of Jan-
senists. But, happily, the susceptibility of those
who so readily submit to outward impressions, and
yield their souls to the government of transitory
impulses instead of abiding principles, furnishes in
itself a check to their extravagance, since some
new form of such folly is ever presenting itself, and
SYMPATHY.
245
their nervous systems are ever open to fresh sym-
pathies ; so that succeeding excitements destroy
each other, and error, always imitating and never
self-possessed, assumes as many shapes as the father
of lies himself—"every thing by turns, but nothing
long." Truth alone is qualified to settle, compose
and establish the form of society, and to hold as
well as to obtain universal dominion over the
minds and bodies of mankind. We are naturally
organized in sympathy rather with the holy than
the evil; as we see that children, not infected by
bad example, always love the good and beautiful.
We may, therefore, believe that when society shall
be more imbued with the practical spirit of truth,
each succeeding generation shall sympathetically,
as well as from conviction, exhibit more perfectly
the beauties of individual and social obedience to
divine law, which is the proper basis of education,
and requires all the superstructure to be conform-
ed to its outline. Instruction in all knowledge
and action will be successful only in proportion as
rule and example are divested of the disguises with
which men have concealed Truth, the most persua-
sive and engaging of all teachers, because really the
sole mistress of our constitutional sympathies.
We are governed by appearances, and we seem
intuitively to act upon this principle: and, without
intending it, we express the pleasure we feel and
desire to convey by meeting our friend with a con-
stant smile. The outward signs of passion and
emotion, which are so wonderfully expressed in
every attitude and feature, constitute the language
of the soul, the bond of interest and union between
246
SYMPATHY.
mind and mind. Men are qualified to influence;
others just in proportion as they are gifted with the
power of feeling lofty emotions and of expressing
them with anatomical precision, and appropriate
compass of face, of voice, and of action. Hence
the success of the actor's or the orator's art de-
pends on the facility with which his nerves and
muscles assume a truthfulness of expression in the
imbodiment of feeling, which, indeed, can never
be fully and satisfactorily accomplished without an
actual participation, in some degree, of the passion
represented; for the effort to imitate will every
now and then be manifest where the feeling does
not somewhat animate the gesture and expression.
The best actors, therefore, are those that are least
like actors, and it is a fact that such as have been
most successful on the stage have often been near-
ly unconscious of acting, in their realizing concep-
tion of the scene in which they placed themselves
and the characters they have assumed. Thus real
tears are not uncommon with a good tragedian,
nor is hearty laughter with a comic actor. Preach-
ers might here leam a useful lesson. It is in vain
for a man to endeavor to persuade others till he
has persuaded himself. He can not convince his
audience that he is influenced by emotion unless
they see it; which they can not while he is merely
endeavoring to imitate the action that belongs to
emotion, instead of feeling what he speaks. Real
hypocrites are really poor orators, and they are
always ready to suspect more successful persuaders
of more art than themselves, whereas they have only
more nature active within them. The unfeeling
SYMPATHY.
247
preacher egrcgiously fails, and so does he, howev
er feeling, who imitates others instead of express-
ing himself. If, however, he suitably contemplate
the subject or passion that he would describe, and
make an effort to regard it steadfastly, he will at
length be moved by it as he would by a living ex-
ample of the passion or subject before his face; for
he can not fix his attention sufficiently on a subject
not interesting to him. His own sympathies will
thus be roused, and he will also rouse others almost
to the extent of his own enthusiasm, if his power
of language correspond with his feeling, which it
generally will. This want of actual emotion in the
speaker causes the sublimest truths and the most
thrilling relations of great facts to fall lifelessly
from the lips, so that the sentences uttered come
forth like wreaths of sleepy mist instead of living
forms of light.
Those who are most commanding among orators
do not appear to be so much addressing their au-
dience as to be contemplating and expressing some
subject of vast interest to themselves, and which
inspires their very souls and features with language
and significance, like a Pythoness. It is this kind
of inspiration with which an audience is most en-
thralled, as those can testify who have heard such
men as Robert Hall. But the force and fervor of
the possessing influence must be visible in the coun-
tenance, as well as heard in the intonations of the
voice. The kindling eye, especially, must speak.
The features, when excited, are so nicely ex-
pressive of the variations in mental emotion, that
by looking on them we at once read the state of
248
SYMPATHY.
the mind in which the individual appears before
us, unless, indeed, he artfully conceal himself; but
even then constraint will be visible.
The skill of the painter is most highly evinced
by his seizing the evanescent play of feeling, which
though unstable as a ray of light upon the trem
bling water, yet in a moment reveals the emotion
of the soul; and it is the exquisite accordancy be-
tween this index and the intelligence that moves
it, which characterizes the man of eloquent features,
and imparts, with the addition of appropriate lan-
guage and utterance, an almost supernatural fas-
cination to the gifted orator. Even without the
auxiliaries of living energy, tone, and language, the
actions of the muscles of the face and eyes are so
marvelously fashioned to respond to the touch of
passion on the nerves, and so completely calculated
to excite our sympathy, that the features even of a
dead man may be automatically played upon by
galvanism, so that spectators shall feel their sensi-
bilities uncontrollably disturbed. Dr. Ure relates
an instance in which rage, horror, despair, anguish,
and ghastly smiles united their hideous expression
in the face of a murderer lately executed, in a
manner surpassing the wildest representations of a
Fuseli or a Kean. So powerful was the effect that
several of the spectators were forced to leave the
room from terror, and one gentleman fainted.
The missionary martyr, Williams, gives a good
example of the power of acting, in exciting sym-
pathy. During the lanching of a ship by the
natives of Eimeo, an old warrior stood on a little
eminence to animate the men at the ropes. " His
SYMPATHY.
249
action was most inspiring. There seemed not a
fiber of his frame which he did not exert; and,
merely from looking at him, I felt as though I was
in the very act of pulling."
Young children are strongly affected by facial
expression, and they learn the features of passion
long before they learn any other part of its lan-
guage. Their imitative faculties are so active,
and their sympathies so acute, that they uncon-
sciously assume the expression of face which they
are accustomed to see and feel. Hence the im-
portance that children be habituated to kindliness,
beauty, and intellect, in those with whom they are
domesticated. Even their playthings and pictures
should be free fi-om depraved meaning and violent
expression, if we wish them to be lovely; and all
the hideous, grotesque, and ludicrous portraiture,
which now vulgarize the public mind, should be
excluded from the nursery. The gothic and su-
perstitious condition of mind will return with the
prevalence of pictorial deformities, and the demand
for the unnatural will increase with the continu-
ance of degraded art; for which deforaiing epi
demic there can be no remedy, but in familiarizing
the common mind with nobler objects.
CHAPTER X.
SOLITUDE.
It is by sympathy with each other that minds
become either corrupted or improved; and how-
ever advantageous occasional solitude may be for
the purpose of familiarizing the mind with its own
actings, and however necessary it may be for the
arrest of pernicious associations, still it is not by
solitude, but by mind acting on mind, through tho
living medium of sight, sound, and touch, that
erroneous humanity is led to right thinking. Where
shall it find a pathway out of the mysterious desert
of its temptations, while left alone or without a
companion, except the tempter ] It was in the
separation of those whom God had joined together
that the serpent beguiler was first able to triumph;
and when a human being is alone, that evil spirit
still haunts him with the likeliest hope of conform-
ing the soul to his own purposes.
Without suitable response to his social desires,
the mind of fallen man will conjure up a thousand
beings to converse with its thoughts, and to give
sentiment and language even to inanimate objects.
All the world is alive to man's imagination. Hence
the solitudes of the wilderness, where the Indian
SOLITUDE. 251
wanders alone, are peopled by him with spirits;
and hence, too, haunted places abound in the tra-
ditions of thinly populated districts, among those
people whose business requires them to pass much
time in solitary walks and watchings among hills
and valleys, where no sound of human association
breaks the monotony of speechless existence. The
Indian saying is true, " Fast in the wilderness and
dream of spirits." This superstitious tendency is
equally manifested, whatever the nature of the soli-
tude, that is, if the mind be developed, and has not
previously been imbued with truth and holiness.
The maddening terrors of young criminals who
are confined to solitary cells, is thus to be ex-
plained.
Probably the solitude of stone walls is the most
terrible of desolations; for living nature, however
wild, will suggest some thought of a benevolent
and protecting spirit. But when vice is doomed
to the dungeon, to hear no voice save that of a
guilty conscience, and to see no smile but the
ghastly smile of despair, what kind of superstition
can there enter but that which makes visible the
darkness of hell, and prompts the madman to seek
refuge from his tormentors in self-murder. An
author, of no common power and sagacity, tells
us that, when at New York, he visited the prison
where they carry out the solitary system, and
held the following brief and significant conversation
with the turnkey.
" Pray why do they call this place the Tombs V
" Well, it's the cant name."
" I know it is. Why 1"
252
SOLITUDE.
" Some suicides happened here when it was first
built. I-expect it come about from that."
I saw just now that the man's clothes were
scattered about the floor of his cell. " Don't you
oblige prisoners to be orderly, and put such things
away 1"
" Where should they put 'em 1"
" Not on the ground, surely: what do you say
to hanging them up ]"
He stops and looks around to emphasize the
answer: " Why, I say that's just it. When they
had hooks they would hang themselves, so they
are taken out of every cell, and there's only the
marks left where they used to be !"
The isolation of a human spirit is worse than
death, for the author of humanity has constituted
it for intercourse, and everywhere in nature has
provided it with scope and occasion to receive and
communicate impulses of affection and of thought.
Even in hell there is companionship. Evil spirits
are attracted to each other, and are permitted to
know so much of mercy as to wander even in
legions together. They associate in their misery
and their mischief, but man has invented a new
mode of punishment and destruction, by imprison-
ing his wayward and ignorant brother in a tomb :
" a breathing man gifted with voice and hearing
is built up in a silent, solitary sepulcher of stone,"
as if to bury his very soul; since there the pulse
of another heart may not beat, and there the
lonely spirit, thus cut off from the enjoyment of
its own faculties, is tormented to madness by the
clash of thoughts and passions without aim ot
SOLITUDE.
253
object. The improvement of even a wise man
without any other fellowship than his own reflec-
tion is impossible. He may arrange his knowl-
edge and devise new schemes, but his heart is
never the better, unless busied for the benefit of
others, or, talking as it were with angels, he
learns of them, or at least is roused by fellowship
with feelings that neither originate nor terminate
in self. If then the man accustomed to secluded
meditation gains no moral progress or advance-
ment but in the interchange of mind with mind,
are we to expect the miserable being, who perhaps
by his very criminality has demonstrated that he
is so uncontrollably excited by association, so mas-
tered by his passions that his own safety is of
small moment in comparison with the pleasure of
pleasing his associates,—are we to expect such a
being to be conducted into right thinking, feel-
ing, and acting, without another mind to approve,
direct, and encourage him in his aspirations after
a higher place in the scale of moral existence 1
What is needed in such a case is surely a friend,
—one with a heart and soul, capable of appreci-
ating the value of a redeemed and immortal spirit,
of proving a true Christian devotedness to the
service of a sinful man, and of loving him in
hope of what he may be hereafter. Thus will he
be drawn, if at all, by the mighty gentleness of
heaven's charity, to follow in sympathy, love, and
veneration, from the depths of vicious debasement
even to the gates of heaven, and into its very
glory. It is kindness that wins the heart. Hence
the apostolic exhortation—"Be followers*of God,
Y
254 SOLITUDE.
as dear children." Captain Sir W. E. Parry,
commenting on these words, observes: " there is
perhaps nothing even in the whole compass of
Scripture more calculated to awaken contrition in
the hardest heart than the Parable of the Prodigal
Son. I knew a convict in New South Wales, in
whom there appeared no symptom of repentance,
in other respects, but who could never hear a ser-
mon or comment on this parable without bursting
into an agony of tears, which I witnessed on
several occasions. Truly he who spoke it knew
what was in man."
Rational retirement is impossible to the irre-
ligious mind. Such a mind perceives not the
proper relation of any thing, and dares not dwell
alone for the purpose of contemplation; for all it
can feel in solitude is the necessity of keeping up
courage by some effort, like a school-boy at night
among the tombs. The spontaneous phantasma-
goria of the vigilant and guilty spirit rise like un-
accountable goblins, unless such a one is busy
with his senses. Solitude is therefore terror and
madness to the uninformed; but let a man be
suitably instructed and furnished with the proper
means of happy mental occupation, and then occa-
sional seclusion will soothe and elevate his spirit.
Retirement from the world is indeed the way to
heaven, and it is when the soul is alone in the
agony of its heavy necessities that God and the
Son of God visit it with salvation. The separation
of man from all his sympathies is death; and soli-
tude is fit for man only when man is fit for fellow-
ship with God. But yet the Almighty has insti-
SOLITUDE.
255
tuted separation in the dying hour, only to conduct
the retiring and confiding spirit to the socialities of
a sublimer life.
The deadening influence of silent confinement is
of course most rapidly destructive to the powers
of both mind and body in youth, at which period
nature is active with no other purpose but pleasure
and development. These being suddenly arrested,
the mental faculties, as well as the limbs, become
useless. If not speedily emancipated, the child
thus unnaturally treated, will soon be found both
an idiot and a cripple. Such a process is like re-
ducing an expanded human being to the state of
Caspar Hauser, who, being concealed from his in-
fancy in a small cellar, there grew to the stature of
a young man, with less of bodily activity, and less
of appearance of mind, than a child at its mother's
breast. " The life of his soul could be compared
only to the life of an oyster, which, adhering to its
rock, is sensible of nothing but the absorption of
its food, and perceives only the eternal, uniform
dashing of the waves, and in its narrow shell finds
no room even for the most confined idea of a world
without it, still less of any thing above the earth,
and above all worlds." Yet this interesting youth,
under the benevolent, but very defective teaching
of kindly associations, afterward manifested such
exquisite delicacy of intellect, conjoined with such
pure and beautiful blendings of affection, that those
who could best read the character of his soul most
tenderly loved him.
Children become idiots in continued solitary con-
finement, but adults more frequently become either
256
SOLITUDE.
suicides or madmen; because, in the former, there
is the absence of guilty habit, but the will in tho
latter had been long perverted, and bent upon"the
attainment of some specific object, in which they
promised themselves especial pleasure. Even self-
amendment, and escape from the misery of their
guilty course had often been hoped for as an end,
with many of the worst inmates of our prisons;
when, therefore, such wretched men are deprived
of the most distant expectation of being in any way
respected or beloved, it is no wonder they become
insane.
Man, in constant banishment from fellowship, is
almost beyond the reach of hope, and in proportion
as he is without hope, he is without the natural
stimulus and inducement to self-correction. A hu-
man being so situated is already in the position of
a melancholy madman. The one is deprived of
all hope of enjoyment by disease, the other by his
fellow-man; and in both cases, the end can only be
entire loss of intellect, or else suicide ; for the brain
and nerves are robbed of their proper stimuli, and
the body becomes the pregnant source of agonizing
sensations.
It is by activity that our faculties are preserved
as well as developed, and their proper action is
always agreeable. Life, in fact, is not properly
maintained, unless in some measure pleasurable.
A feeling of unfitness for life always seizes the
heart that is robbed of hope, and whenever despair
gets possession, the soul desires death, and strug-
gles for oblivion. There can be no spontaneous
remedy in our disordered nature for the terrors of
SOLITUDE.
257
guilt, but if we possess a true faith, despair appears
impossible. Belief in God, as He is, not according
to this mode or that, but simply as our God for-
ever, is the only cure for every thorough heart-
trouble.
17
CHAPTER XL
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PASSIONS.
We can not doubt that, as the life of this flesh
hangs on a breath, so the power of controlling
thought hangs on some delicate arrangement of
atoms, with which the soul is so connected as to
move it, and to be moved by it. The difference
between the sublimest philosopher and the most
groveling idiot, in regard to the exhibition and en
joyment of intellect, is, as far as we can discover
but the difference in their respective organization.
and its state of health. This humbling view oughi
to cure us of intellectual conceit; for who darc»
despise his brother's understanding, when he reflects
that the Divine mind will hereafter judge us not for
lack of power, but for its abuse; not according to
what we have not, but according to what we have;
and will distribute new endowments as each may
have employed the capacity he held. The decisive
crisis is but a result. How silly, then, is that com-
mon adulation of talent which regards not moral
principle, and values the play of wit more than a
Godlike will, although this is indeed the only true
dignity of our nature. What mere cant of bigotry
and carping criticism must that be, which would
GOVERNMENT OF THE PASSIONS. 25'J
alike depress all minds to their own low, dull, flat,
unprofitable level of formality, as if the diversified
workmanship of the Infinite could all be trimmed
into the same shape by conceited man. As well
may we endeavor to reduce creation to a monotony,
as to bring all minds to perceive and act in the
same manner. The spirit of each must vary as
much fi-om all others in power and intelligence, as
the material medium, through which it works, must
differ from all others in construction and circum-
stances.
The body is only a convenient form which the
spirit uses, and we have the highest authority for
believing that many spirits may occupy and em-
ploy the same body. Nor can we discover any
thing in nature that renders it difficult to credit
this fact. Some persons, with most unphilosophi-
cal audacity, have, however, denied its possibility,
but, at least, it behooves them first to prove that they
understand the mode of spiritual existence and
operation, before they contradict the literal force
of the New Testament, from which we leam that,
if we use not our bodies according to divine law,
they will be employed by other spirits to dishonor
and destruction. But in no circumstances in which
the moral integrity of the soul can be tried, does it
necessarily succumb to the seductions of the body,
nor, with right knowledge and reliance, to the per-
suasions of perverse spirits.
" Who reigns within himself and rules
Passions, desires, and fears, is more than king."—Milton.
But how are our passions to be governed, ex-
cept by a dominant principle or attachment to
260 GOVERNMENT OF THE PASSIONS.
some mighty truth, by which the will may be rec
tified, and nobler purpose be substituted for inferioi
desire. Superior motives are addressed to every
understanding. Our Maker has implanted detect
ing conscience, self-respect, and social affections,
in every mind elevated above the physical curtail-
ments of idiotism. The passions, then, are the
elements of our moral nature; they can not be
destroyed without our own destruction.
The suspension of their influence is the sus-
pension of consciousness. It is only by the con-
sent of our wills that they are excited into disorder,
and only by our obedience to the laws which our
conscience acknowledges are our passions brought
to acj; in harmony. They must be placed in their
proper relations to their objects, before the per-
fection of their purpose can be demonstrated : and
as wisely might we say that disease and tempest
frustrate divine wisdom, as impugn the Almighty
because our moral being is liable to disturbance.
Disorder must yet glorify the God that called light
out of darkness. He will vindicate Himself by
teaching the sinful soul in felt weakness to depend
on Omnipotence, and to derive motive, encourage
ment, and means, to rise above all merely human
affections, by submitting to the beauty and attract-
iveness of divine example. It needs only the
superintendence of a corrected understanding to
pi-eserve our passions in order, by keeping them
employed in a proper manner. Even in a re-
formed madhouse we may learn that occupation
is the secret of enjoyment; for, however whimsical
the delusion, or however impetuous the passion, it
GOVERNMENT OF THE PASSIONS. 261
may be diverted or innocently gratified, by one
mind gaining the attention of another. It is by
partially yielding to the mistaken interests that
absorb the disordered mind that we persuade and
acquire the power of conducting it to right asso-
ciations. It is by a demonstrated concern for the
well-being of others that we secure their affections,
and it is by contemplating.the ways of Providence
toward ourselves that we attain holier desires, and
a full confidence in the hand that helps us.
A little reflection will show us that the effect of
one object of emotion can be removed only by the
mind being directed to another. Thus anger, the
fiercest of our passions, is often arrested by a word,
a look, or a thought, reminding us of some tender
and beloved association.
The greatest agony which the body can endure
is sustained for the sake of those we love. Even
the lower animals furnish us with striking examples
of the mastery of affection over physical suffering.
Addison, in the Spectator, relates a touching in-
stance. A skillful anatomist opened a bitch, and,
as she lay in the most exquisite tortures, offered
her one of her young ones, which she immediately
began to lick, and for a time seemed insensible of
her own pain : on its being removed, she kept hei
eye fixed on it, and commenced a wailing cry,
which seemed rather to proceed from the loss of
her young than a sense of her own torment. We
may well blush to contrast the cruelty of the man
with the affection of the dog.
We are all governed by what we love, and are
taught rather by what we witness in others thar
262 GOVERNMENT OF THE PASSIONS.
by what we experience in ouiselves; by what wo
see, rather than what we know.; and the manage-
ment of our moral feelings is successful according
to the demand upon our sympathies. The best
moral education is familiarity with generous af-
fections at work, and with the wisdom of law
exemplified in society, endeavoring to prevent
evil, and proving that God can not endure that
one of his rational creatures should harm another.
By contemplating in others the loveliness of self-
government, for unselfish purposes, we find our
wishes correspond with theirs, and we love them
just in proportion as we understand our true
interest, and believe in the purity of motive. This
is the divine method of teaching—" The life is the
light of men."
CHAPTER XII.
THE HIGHEST TRIUMPH OF THE SOUL.
CONCLUSION.
The triumph of man over pain and difficulty is
always achieved by fixing his desire upon the at-
tainment of some prize, and the strength of his
determination is proportioned to the value his un-
derstanding puts upon the object at which he
aims. The highest motive that can inspire the
rational will is the approval of God; being asso-
ciated as it is with the assurance of His perfection
and the bestowment of His favor. Hence we find
a man, whether savage or civilized, heathen or
Christian, ready to endure any suffering rather
than forego his reliance upon the being whom he
acknowledges as his God. The object of his
worship may be false as Juggernaut, or as true as
Jehovah, the conscientious votary is still faithful
unto death; but vast indeed the difference in the
consolation and the reason of the faith: as widely
separated as the persuasions of folly and terror
from the attractiveness of perfect wisdom and love.
Yet it is most interesting to reflect on the might
of man's will in resisting temptation and endur-
ing trial, in obedience of what he believes to b«
HIGHEST TRIUMPH OF THE SOUL.
the mandate of the divine mind. This submission
of his being to supreme will most wonderfully
exhibits man's constitution. He was mado to
obey God, and this power depends not on a re-
fined education, for the most untutored exhibit it
as heroically, if not so beautifully, as the most in-
formed. It has been said that it is easier to act
the martyr than to conquer one's temper; but
these achievements are alike difficult, and require
the same lofty conceptions of a higher and holier
being, who has a right to demand our self-renun-
ciation from love to His perfections. We may
therefore include all sense of duty by which men
are governed in the idea of supreme right; and if
we find men, as we do, willing to sacrifice them-
selves, we at once perceive that they possess a
power in their own wills to overcome every evil
disposition by constant obedience to God, their
chief good, and the author of their being. The
mind and body are by Him so proportioned, that
one can bear all that can be inflicted on the other,
and virtue can stand its ground as long as life; so
that a soul well-principled will be sooner separated
than subdued*
The detail given by Catlin of the religious rites
of the Mandan Indians, although presenting an
awful picture of the horrors of ignorance and
superstition, yet exhibit also a strong illustration
of high moral motive, sustaining and enabling the
mind to bear patiently the greatest sufferings of
the body. He represents them as voluntarily un-
dergoing the most excruciating agonies, for the
* See Rambler, No. 32.
HIGHEST TRIUMPH OF THE SOUL. 265
purpose of proving their devotedness in the dedica-
tion of both body and soul to the Great Spirit.
After a long fast, extensive wounds are inflicted
in different parts of their bodies, into which skew-
ers of wood are inserted, by which they are then
suspended until the quiverings of the lacerated
muscles cease, and all struggle and tremor are
over; when, being apparently dead, or as they
term it in the keeping of the Great Spirit, they
are lowered to the ground, where they are allowed
to lie till that Spirit enables them to get up and
walk. Other horrid rites of an agonizing kind
are added, but this is enough to show that these
deluded heroes and voluntary martyrs, with due
instruction and example, would have made fine
Christians; for they committed their souls to the
keeping of the Great Spirit, apparently with as
firm a confidence in his power, but alas! without
a knowledge of His love, as did Lambert, when
consuming in a slow fire by order of the bigoted
and cruel Henry, he cried in his torments and in
his death, " None but Christ, none but Christ;"
or as did Cranmer, when repenting of the weak-
ness that induced him to subscribe to papal doc-
trines, he held his hand unflinchingly in the flames
until entirely consumed, calling aloud, " This hand
has offended, this hand has offended !"
The history of martyrdom supplies a multitude
of instances which so convincingly demonstrate the
dominion of the soul over the body, as to induce a
prevalent belief among those who consider not the
might of the human will, that martyrs were gener-
ally sustained in their sufferings by direct mirac-
Z
266 HIGHEST TRIUMPH OF THE SOUL.
ulous interference. Nor can we wonder at this
notion, for a faith that triumphs over death ap-
pears supernatural; belonging not so much to this
life as to another, and indeed taking possession of
the soul to fix its affections on a nobler world to
conduct it thither.
It may be imagined that excessive bodily tor-
ment would exhaust the nervous power and ter
minate in delirium, thus accounting for the raptures
expressed on some of those occasions. This may
sometimes happen, especially when the infliction is
very gradual, and the brain has been previously
wearied by feverish anxieties; for our merciful
Maker has so ordered our connection with the
body, that when suffering becomes too intense and
too continued for the mastery of the will, through
the nervous structure, the attention is drawn off
from the bodily feeling by mental associations, and
from sensible to spiritual impressions, and delight-
ful thoughts then generally take the place of
agony. But this delirious ecstasy 6eems very
rarely to have happened with martyrs; for their
exalted determination in general maintained a tes-
timony either in prayers or exhortations against
demoniac persecution, with clearness and rational
freedom till the very moment that death sealed
their evidence. That the mind retained its integ-
rity in the midst of flames until the moment of
decease, is shown by many facts, as in the in-
stances of Lambert and Cranmer above quoted.
Mr. Hawkes, also, being entreated by his friends
to give them some token that the fire was not so
intolerable but that a man might keep his mind
HIGHEST TRIUMPH OF THE SOUL. 267
quiet and patient, he assented; and, if so, he prom-
ised he would lift his hands above his head before
he died. An eye-witness states that at the stake
he mildly addressed himself to the flames, and
when his speech was taken away, and his skin
drawn altogether, and his fingers consumed so that
all thought him dead, he, in remembrance of his
promise, suddenly lifted up his burning hands and
clapped them together three times, as if in great
joy. James Bainham, also, having half his arms
and legs consumed, spake these words : " Ye look
for miracles! Here, now, ye may see one. This
fire is a bed of roses to me."
These witnesses for heaven knew what death is,
but they never felt it. The Lord of life changed
torment into delight for them, and converted the
fury of flame into a gentle air that wafted their
spirits to their kindred; and ere He sent the chariot
of salvation He had well assured them that the sep-
aration of soul and body is only a symbolic part of
death; but that to dwell willingly in the darkness
which the smile of perfect love can never dissipate,
is death indeed. This struggling after unattainable
objects, this fretting because we can not trust our
faithful Creator, this turmoil of selfish passion—this
is death. Reliance upon God for every good is
life. The spirit, elevated and sustained by the
divine strength of a Christian's faith, may walk
above the turbulence of this world in a path of
light, brighter and calmer than that which the
moonbeam paves upon the waters, and which
terminates only in the pure and serene glory of
eternal heaven.
268 HIGHEST TRIUMPH OF THE BOUL.
We find, then, that man, as regards both mind
and body, is liable to disease from disturbance
originating in the moral nature. His passions are
his bane as well as his blessedness. Now these
tendencies to disorder, existing in his constitutional
emotions, are to be subdued only by appeals to a
power of self-control, to some consenting principle
which perceives the reasonableness of obedience
to certain laws for the sake of preserving the well-
being of one's self in the welfare of others. In
short, an appeal to the understanding of the indi-
vidual for his own benefit, only as a part of a grand
system of united individuals.
Conscience proves our personality, and indicates
that our nature is not a random result, but that it
may be improved or perverted in relation to a fu-
ture state; for if we have not, nor expect, another
state of being, what is the consequence of this life 1
Why should we regard any thing but our own con-
venience or enjoyment 1 What, then, is the value
of that word which whispers inwardly—" Thou
Bhalt love thy God with all thy soul, and thy neigh-
bor as thyself?"
The arguments of materialists go to establish the
notion that health of mind depends on health of
body; but the truth seems to be, that what con-
tributes to the one contributes also to the other;
for neither can be preserved without obedience to
moral as well as physical ordinances. Indeed, it
may not be impossible to prove that perfect obedi-
ence to moral law would insure the complete wel-
fare of human nature ; and the more we study the
operation of our passions on the body, the more we
HIGHEST TRIUMPH OF THE SOUL. 269
discover of evidence that health of soul is health to
the body also; at least we can not fail to discern
that a holy will is the best regulator of desire and
of action, and the only warrant of our qualification
for an inheritance in light.
The one conclusion of all research on this, as on
every other subject, is inevitable. There is cer-
tainly some end worthy of man's creation and suit-
ed to his spirit, in his advancing struggle after
knowledge and goodness, which the economy of
earthly existence does not furnish. The purpose
of being is not here explained; intelligent desire is
not satisfied; the sunshine of truth is only reflected
on earth; there is no perfect day to the soul; light
direct from its source falls not on the sight; wa
must imagine the delights of which we are capa
ble, but which we can not here realize; we must
live abstractedly if we would live reasonably in
holy intimacy with Divine and human science ; we
must look forward into futurity for the meaning of
the past. The present adds but a stone to the
grand erection, the design of which is to occupy
our contemplation everlastingly; for each individ-
ual mind, in its memory and experience, is adding
material to material, in an order and for an end at
present unknown to itself, but yet manifestly ac-
cording to the plan of a mind that can not be dis-
appointed.
The very body, which in health so beautifully
obeys us, while the soul seeks only perishing en
joyment, becomes an impediment to our nobler
aspirations; and when the spirit awakes to the con-
sciousness of its infinite capacity, its very efforts to
^70 HIGHEST TRIUMPH OF THE SOUL.
be free tend to burst the bonds of the body, which
becomes more and more irksome as the mind grows
mature; at length the ruinous condition of the earth-
ly tabernacle strengthens the desire for one that is
heavenly and eternal; and when the body obeys
not, then the attentive believing spirit begins to
enjoy true liberty in acquaintance with God's pur-
pose to his creature; and already catching a gleam
of glory from beyond the grave, the regenerated
man passes through death, and finds it only one
step to enter forever through that gateway into
satisfying and endless life.
THE END
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